THE MARKETING EXPO 2002: Speaker preview.

Recycling data requires nothing more than a little legal know-how Shelagh Gaskill looks at your rights.

The beauty of information is that it is never consumed. Different organisations can take the same piece of information, add their own unique spin to it and exploit it to make money.

However, you must be in a position to do this lawfully and this means abiding by data protection legislation. This is not difficult. If you follow a few simple rules, you are 80 per cent of the way towards achieving full compliance.

Lawful justification

The first rule is that you have to find a lawful justification for processing.

You can obtain consent from individuals - easily done if you are in regular contact with your database. You can also use personal data to perform a contract with the individual. Finally, you can use personal data in the legitimate interests of your business, so long as the rights and freedoms of individuals are not prejudiced. This means it is perfectly lawful for you, as the original collecting company, to market your own goods and services to your database by mail without consent.

Only if you wish to use other marketing channels, such as outbound telephone calling, SMS or e-mail, or you wish to do other non-obvious things with the data, such as sharing it with your other companies, do you have to take more elaborate steps.