ICO Approves Data-Sharing Scheme for UK Gambling Sector

For the period between April 2022 and March 2023, it was estimated that over £3 billion was spent on gambling, demonstrating the sheer size of the industry within the UK and also highlighting the potential problems with irresponsible gambling practices.

Stephen Almond, the executive director of regulatory risk at the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), stated:

“problem gambling has devastating consequences for people’s finances, relationships and health. We are keen to see the financial sector share data to protect people from unaffordable losses and spiralling debt”

To combat this, the ICO recently approved proposals for the sharing of financial data with gambling operators for the purpose of carrying out financial risk checks, with the ultimate aim of protecting gamblers from unaffordable losses.

However, the transfer and sharing of personal financial data needed to be considered to establish whether transferring and sharing data for such purposes would be compliant with current UK data protection law. 

The data-sharing scheme will likely affect all those operating within the UK gambling sector, particularly gambling operators, credit reference agencies and banks and lenders.

In its letter to UK Finance, the ICO has stated that it expects:

• Gambling operators to implement or update any processes to ensure the data received from credit reference agencies is analysed accurately, held securely and not used for any additional (incompatible) purpose; 
• Credit reference agencies to conduct data processing impact assessments (DPIAs) before processing personal information for financial risk checks; and 
• Banks and lenders to update their privacy notices (and other relevant information) to reflect the increased scope of data sharing by the credit reference agencies.