Pro-Brexit campaign facing data misuse fines

Companies linked to a leading pro-Brexit donor are being fined a total of 135,000 pounds for data protection breaches during Britain's 2016 referendum, officials said on Tuesday.

The Leave.EU campaign, bankrolled by businessman Arron Banks, used the personal data of customers of an insurance company owned by the businessman to send them political marketing material unlawfully.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) regulator said it had issued a notice of intent to fine Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance, trading as GoSkippy, 60,000 pounds each for "serious breaches" of electronic marketing law.

"More than one million emails were sent to Leave.EU subscribers over two separate periods which also included marketing for GoSkippy services, without their consent," in a breach of regulations, the ICO said.

The ICO also intends to fine Leave.EU a further 15,000 pounds for a "separate, serious breach" after almost 300,000 emails were sent to Eldon Insurance customers containing a Leave.EU newsletter.

It said it was also investigating allegations that Eldon shared customer data obtained for insurance purposes with Leave.EU.

Banks played down the announcement.

"The ICO find no evidence of a grand data conspiracy and find we may have accidentally sent a newsletter to customers," Banks said on Twitter.

"Gosh, we communicated with our supporters and offered them a 10 per cent Brexit discount after the vote! So what?"