Been offered an e-receipt recently? Retailers are increasingly asking shoppers for their email addresses at the till in order to send spam emails, research finds.
More and more shops are asking customers for their email address at the till, citing a range of reasons why it can be beneficial to the shopper.
But, some stores are bombarding people with spam emails and, possibly even selling on the email addresses to third parties.
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“We’ve started emailing receipts as it’s better for the environment.”
“Are you sure you don’t want your receipt by email as you may lose the paper version?”
“We don’t do paper receipts anymore so if you want a receipt you need to give us your email address.”
These are all statements people have heard at the till as shop workers attempt to get them to hand over their email address, reports the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
But, don’t be too quick to believe them.
Actually, the decision to offer e-receipts has nothing to do with the environment. Instead, retailers want to get hold of your email address so they can send you marketing emails and encourage you to spend more money with them.
But, the ICO is warning that many stores may be breaking the law when they ask you for your email address.
By law, they have to tell you what they intend to do with your personal information, but many don’t mention that your email address may be used for marketing purposes.
“Whenever customer information is collected there must be a clear explanation given of how their information will be used,” says Garreth Cameron, group manager for Business and Industry at the ICO.
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More and more people are reporting how they were asked for their email address in order to be sent an e-receipt, only to be bombarded with marketing material.
In some cases, shops are incentivising staff to gather as many email addresses as possible. An investigation by the Daily Mail found a staff member at a New Look store who said he received vouchers for every 300 email addresses he collected.
In order to stay on the right side of the law retailers must ask for consent from the customer for their email address to be used for marketing purposes.
“For consent to be valid it must be knowingly and freely given, clear and specific,” says Cameron. “It must cover both the particular organisation in question and the type of communication to be used. Customers should also be able to easily withdraw their consent.”
Ahead of the Christmas shopping period the ICO is warning retailers to be careful when asking customers for email addresses and to make sure staff are trained properly to ask the right questions to gain consent.
This also means staff must clearly gain consent if an email address is going to be sold to a third party.
Finally, the ICO has raised concerns about whether retailers have the security in place to protect all the data they are gathering.
In the wake of the TalkTalk and Tesco hacks, data security is a hot topic and there are fears hackers could access thousands of email addresses by targeting retailers.
So, before you hand over your email address in return for the convenience of an electronic receipt make sure you are clear about how the store can use your information.
If you are bombarded with marketing emails when you did not give your consent then you can report the company to the ICO.
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