On the go: Work and Pensions Committee chair Stephen Timms has written to the minister of state for media, data and digital infrastructure calling for reassurance that the government will consider the issues of pensions advice and guidance as it updates its privacy and electronic communications legislation.
The committee is currently conducting its ‘saving for later life’ enquiry, in the course of which it has heard that schemes are restricted in their ability to communicate with members because of the requirements contained in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, and of the balance that must be struck between those requirements and guidance from the Pensions Regulator.
Timms wrote to the minister, Julia Lopez, explaining that the Universities Superannuation Scheme was amongst those to have written to the committee, arguing that the need to strike this balance “has materially impacted on their ability to communicate helpful information to scheme members and to maximise the benefits of investment in the scheme website, member portal and online functionality”.
He said the USS was supportive of a proposal made in the department’s recent consultation on privacy and electronic communications regulations, ‘Data: a new direction’, which would see the “soft opt-in” extended to non-commercial organisations and information gathered via auto-enrolment. It is currently only available to commercial organisations.
The department’s consultation launched on September 10 2021 and ran for 10 weeks, with the government now considering its response.
It explains that the “soft opt in” stipulates that commercial businesses “may generally only contact individuals who have previously been in touch during a sale or transaction, and have not refused or opted out of receiving marketing communications about similar products.
“This is known as a ‘soft opt-in’. These provisions strike a balance between preserving people’s data protection rights and allowing legitimate business activities.”
The government proposed extending this to encompass non-commercial organisations, so that companies relying on the soft opt-in “must give a person the chance to opt out when they first collect the person’s contact details and in every subsequent communication they send.
“It must also be simple to opt-out — for example a person should be able to reply directly to an email message, or click a clear ‘unsubscribe’ link”.
Timms said Aviva had told the committee that existing regulations, as they pertain to pensions, are “an obstacle to boosting uptake of advice and guidance, saying that ‘we can build very effective propositions and tools to help customers, but if we can’t tell customers about them, they won’t use them".
“Other pension providers raised the issue of data protection legislation more generally, in oral evidence on 27 April,” he wrote.
He called on the minister to “assure the committee that this important issue is being considered as the department formulates its response to the consultation”.
