ICO Publishes Soft Opt-in Electronic Marketing Guidance for United Kingdom Charities

By: Dr. Thomas Nietsch and Noirin M. McFadden

The UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published guidance for charities to use the new charitable purposes soft opt-in for electronic marketing.

The new version of the soft opt-in was included in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and came into force on 5 February 2026. Previously, charities could not send electronic marketing messages, such as emails and texts, to supporters unless they had specifically opted in to receive them. This was a significant difference between charities and commercial businesses, who have been able to use the soft opt-in to contact customers, and limited access for charities to this cheaper and more immediate electronic direct marketing. We have seen in our pro bono work with charities how valuable electronic marketing can be for them, so this will be a positive change for them to promote their important work.

The soft opt-in allows charities to send direct electronic marketing messages to individuals who have expressed interest in, or offered to support, their charitable purpose without having to obtain individuals’ specific consent to receive marketing, subject to safeguards. These include:

• Individuals should have been given an opportunity to refuse or opt out of the use of their contact details for electronic marketing purposes at the point their details were collected;
  
• The marketing messages sent must only be to further the relevant charity’s own charitable purposes, not any other charity’s work, or any commercial ventures; and
  
• The charity must have collected the contact details directly, so the soft opt-in does not apply to email addresses passed on by a third-party fundraising platform.

Charities must also comply with the requirement to have an “unsubscribe” link on all messages and to cease contacting individuals who opt-out at any time.