The DMA fears that the EU’s new draft Data Protection Regulation poses a severe threat to UK businesses that market their goods and services to consumers.

Commenting on the publication of the draft text, Chris Combemale, executive director of the DMA, said:

“UK businesses need to be worried about the potential impact of the Data Protection Regulation. Severe restrictions on how you can use personal data for marketing purposes will be hugely damaging to sales.

Since Data Protection became up for review we have been pushing to ensure that policymakers take the industry’s interests into consideration.

We’ll be conducting research to assess the economic impact of the Regulation on the multi-billion pound direct marketing industry so that we can put a strong case to the lawmakers at every stage to ensure that there are no detrimental consequences for the industry.

We appreciate the need for data protection rules to be in place to build consumer trust in sharing their information with companies, but getting this balance wrong will have terrible financial consequences."
The DMA is now studying the draft text of the Regulation and will be issuing further comment at a later stage.