EXCLUSIVE: Rowenna Davis, the very well-connected Labour candidate for Croydon Mayor, this week found herself tangled up in a breach of hundreds of people’s personal data, raising questions about the competence of her campaign. By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Community discussion: the guest list for last night’s meeting was widely distributed by Rowenna Davis
Rowenna Davis, the Labour Party’s candidate for Croydon Mayor at next year’s local elections, has been forced to issue an apology to hundreds of supporters, and others, after her campaign sent out correspondence revealing their personal email addresses without their permission.
Davis has also refered herself to the Information Commissioner over the campaign email, which was sent to more than 300 addressees inviting them to an event in Waddon last night.
Whoever in Davis’s office sent out the email failed to use the blind copy option, thus revealing the Labour candidate’s local address list for all to see. The error represents a blatant breach of GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation – rules and the 2018 Data Protection Act.
The blunder perhaps may not be the most serious of offences committed by Croydon Labour in recent years, but it does reflect on the organisation’s competency. Or rather, the lack of it.
Some members of Croydon Labour remain under police investigation for a different, more serious, data offence, over the manipulation of its membership address lists in 2023 during the selection of a parliamentary candidate in Croydon East.
But as one unwitting recipient of Davis’s campaign email told Inside Croydon: “I didn’t ask to be put on this list. I’ve never agreed to Ms Davis or Croydon Labour to hold my personal details. And I certainly never asked for my personal details to be shared with hundreds of other people.
“I can’t even find a way to get my details removed from their files: there’s no unsubscribe option either.”
Despite the Labour Party in Croydon having a professional “borough organiser” in place for many years, the address list used by Davis’s campaign team appears to be very out of date. The invitation went out to council election candidates of other political parties, and it also included “Valerie Shawcross AM”. Shawcross was Labour’s mayoral candidate in 2022. Shawcross, the former leader of Croydon Council, has not been a member of the London Assembly, or an “AM”, for almost 10 years.
Not to be missed: Labour’s campaign email list for Waddon could probably do with some updating
The data breach, however modest, could even result in some of those on the mailing list making a claim for compensation against Davis or the Labour Party.
As one firm of solicitors adises: “A personal data breach can cause significant harm to both your mental health and your finances.”
Davis, Waddon councillor since 2022 and the author of Tangled Up in Blue: Blue Labour and the Struggle for Labour’s Soul, has come in for some public criticism of late, particularly around her use of photographs of her young daughters in her social media activity.
Davis’s law-breaking invitation email went out at 7.16pm on Wednesday, announcing a community meeting with Croydon West MP Sarah Jones to take place the following evening.
“This is a chance to hear directly from me about my campaign for Croydon Mayor, share your priorities for Croydon, and ask questions about the future of our borough,” Davis said in her email.
“Waddon is my home. It’s where I’m raising my children, and it means a great deal to me to be able to listen and work with neighbours on the issues that matter most to us.”
Davis was unaware of the data clanger until Inside Croydon brought the matter to her attention two hours after the email had been sent out. By 10.30pm that night, she responded to this website’s enquiries by saying, “I appreciate you raising this.”
Ready to receive your complaints: Davis has ‘self-referred’ to the ICO
Davis said, “We immediately apologised.” Presumably, that’s where “immediately” means three hours after the blunder.
The apology, Davis told Inside Croydon, was “drafted as soon as I heard about the mistake”.
At 10.25pm, another email was sent out, also from Rowenna Davis’s same Croydon Labour email address, but this time to an unknown number of recipients: whoever was pressing the “send” button had managed to put all the addresses safely in the BCC section.
In her apology email, Davis admits the error.
“Earlier today, you received an email from our campaign in which recipients were mistakenly cc’d instead of bcc’d. This was an error on our part.
“We apologise for this mistake. We recognise that your email address should not have been shared with others on the list,” Davis wrote. “We are taking the matter very seriously.”
Davis told recipients that her campaign is “reviewing our procedures to ensure this does not happen again” and that they “will report this to the Information Commissioner’s Office immediately”.
They also asked recipients “not to use or share the contact details of others on the list”.
Data checks: Labour has a reputation for badly handling other people’s personal information
Davis added: “No information other than email addresses was included in the message. Thank you for your understanding, and again, I apologise.”
If you found your email address included on this, or any other politician’s communications without your permission, you can report them to the Information Commissioner on this website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.
Once there, you might also want to raise the matter of the 2021 hack attack conducted against this website’s email and social media accounts.
Then, members of the Labour Party in Croydon, including one still-serving councillor, boasted of having received the stolen data and openly discussed how they would use it to damage their political rivals, including two of Davis’s predecessors as Waddon councillors.
The Labour Party has never taken any disciplinary action against those involved in the hack.
Read more: ‘Inside Croydon – The Movie’: Labour’s role in a hack attack
Read more: Council pays £10,000 grant to councillor’s undeclared business
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: Source of hacked data worked for Evans
Read more: TV investigation uncovers Labour Party’s dirty tricks and hacks
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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