Personal information
People trust the BBC and we must be transparent with them. We should make it clear to people how we intend to use their personal information even if it is simply an email address or a phone number. Personal information is collected, for example, when people enter competitions, register with an interactive community or become part of a database of contributors. See Section 16: Law on Data Protection.
Contributors' personal details, comments or other personal information should not normally be given to third parties without the consent of the contributor or, if consent cannot be obtained, this should be referred to the relevant Interactive Executive Editor or equivalent who may wish to consult Regulatory Legal Department. If we have consent, a contract should require the third party to use the information only for the use agreed between the contributor and the BBC.
Databases of contributors to programmes
Programmes often gather personal information about contributors and potential contributors via their web sites before storing it in databases. This information should not normally be accessible to other departments outside the production area which has collected it. Any proposal to make an exception should first be referred to Regulatory Legal Department.
Any proposal to collect personal information on a BBC publicly funded site which might be disclosed to third parties, including BBC Worldwide, must be referred to the relevant Interactive Executive Editor or equivalent who may wish to consult Regulatory Legal Department and Fair Trading.
Sending emails
We should not send emails (spam) to people who have not agreed to receive them. If personal information is going to be used for promotion, marketing, research or any other secondary purpose, our users must "opt in". For example, we should not send promotional e-mails about our output when people have originally given us their email address in order to enter a competition. See Section 16: Law on Data Protection.
However, in some instances we may wish to offer our users the opportunity to email BBC online content to a friend.
When sending emails to a list of BBC subscribers, we should take great care to see that the email addresses of the subscribers are not visible to others on the list. For more on email, see Section 15: Interacting with our audiences - Email.
We should take particular care when collecting personal information from children. See Section 9: Children - Privacy and consent and Section 9: Children - Parental consent.