13/2017 Sheldon Investments Limited (trading as River Medical)

In September 2015 we received a complaint against Sheldon Investments Limited, trading as River Medical, from an individual who had received unsolicited marketing emails to which he had not consented and which were subsequent to his attempts to opt out of such emails. In making his complaint, the individual explained that he had previously had a consultation with River Medical during which he was obliged to complete a form. He stated that when completing the form he expressly stated that he did not wish to receive any marketing emails from them. He subsequently received a marketing email from River Medical in April 2015 and he replied to the email with a request that his address be removed from their marketing list immediately. He received confirmation two days later that his contact details were removed. Despite this, he received a further unsolicited marketing email from River Medical in September 2015 which prompted him to submit a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner.

During our investigation of this complaint, River Medical told us that the failure to respect the complainant’s opt-out request was due to human error. It explained that it had made his file ‘inactive’ on receipt of his opt-out request, but it did not realise that it needed to manually delete his file in order to prohibit the sending of further marketing material to him. It assured us that on foot of our investigation of the complaint, the individual’s email address had been deleted from its systems. We concluded the investigation of that complaint in December 2015 with a warning to the company that it would likely be prosecuted if it committed any further offences under the marketing regulations.

One year later, in December 2016, the individual submitted a new complaint after he received a further unsolicited marketing email from River Medical. We investigated this complaint and we were informed once again that the latest infringement had been caused by human error in the selection of an incorrect mailing list on Newsweaver, the system used by the company to issue emails. The company apologised for the incident. As we had previously issued a warning to the company, the Data Protection Commissioner decided to prosecute it in respect of the two unsolicited marketing emails issued in December 2016 and in September 2015.

At Dublin Metropolitan District Court on 3 July 2017, Sheldon Investments Ireland Limited pleaded guilty to two charges of sending unsolicited marketing emails without consent. The Court sought the payment of €800 in the form of a charitable donation to Focus Ireland and it adjourned the matter. The defendant agreed to cover the prosecution costs of the Data Protection Commissioner. At the adjourned hearing the defendant produced proof of payment of the charitable donation and the Court struck out the charges.