Firms urged to stop 'text pests' hassling customers for dates

Nearly a third of young people have had unwanted propositions from "text pest" staff at firms that have their personal details, the UK's data watchdog says.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said it was "struck" by how many people had received unsolicited romantic or sexual propositions.

Its study showed that around 30% of 18-34 years olds, and a quarter of 35-44 year olds, had "fallen prey".

The ICO said that such behaviour, "quite simply, it is against the law."

Across all ages, the ICO found that 17% of the public had received unwanted contact from employees after using their businesses. London had the highest rate, with 33% of respondents in the city reporting it happening to them.

Emily Keaney, the deputy commissioner of the ICO, said that her office was prompted to commission the study by a BBC Radio 5 Live report in May by two members of staff who were victims and told the station she was "struck" by what was found.

"The number of people that this is happened to is really concerning," she told 5 Live, adding that she had launched a call for evidence from other victims to fully gauge the extent of the problem.

"There might be this misperception that this is romantic. But it is not romantic - it's not okay, it can be very intimidating and actually it's against the law," she added.

Ms Keaney said that both the company and the individual employee could be held liable for such behaviour.

"The organisations have a responsibility that when anybody shares their data that they use it in the way that we would expect - just for the purposes that it has been shared," she said.

"If they are not doing that, that is potentially a breach of data protection law.

"But also, it is potentially an offence for that individual to be accessing info and using it for personal purposes. They could end up in court and being fined for that."

Ms Keaney said that her office had launched a campaign to remind businesses of their responsibilities and "to hear about the kinds of safeguards they have in place".

Emma Green, the managing partner of Cyber Data Law solicitors, said that her advice was to "say to the perpetrator 'don't contact me again'. Delete the number. Complain to the company, complain to the ICO. And if anybody feels unsafe - contact the police."

The IOC research found that 66% of the public believed the practice was morally wrong. This broke down into 74% of female respondents and 58% of males.

The survey was based on interviews with 2,289 UK adults. A breakdown by gender was not provided for those who received the inappropriate messages.

"People have the right to order a pizza, or give their email for a receipt, or have shopping delivered, without then being asked for sex or a date a while later," said Ms Keaney said in an earlier statement.

The ICO urged companies to ensure they understood their responsibilities.

"If you are running a customer-facing business, you have a responsibility to protect the data of your customers, including from your employees misusing it," Ms Keaney added.

"We are writing to major businesses, including in food and parcel delivery, to remind them that there are no excuses, and there can be no looking the other way."

The ICO is the UK's independent regulator for data protection and information rights law.