Paper Puts Ipsos MORI's EE Partnership Under Spotlight

In the UK, a partnership between Ipsos MORI and mobile phone company EE is in the public eye after the Sunday Times said data on EE customers was being offered to the Metropolitan Police. Both EE and MRS Code-compliant Ipsos MORI have confirmed that the data is aggregated and anonymised.

EE, quoted by the BBC, said the paper's article was 'misleading to say the least' and that its research partner had access only to anonymised data grouped in samples of 50 people or more. In a statement, it added: 'We would never breach the trust our customers place in us and we always act to comply fully with the Data Protection Act'.

The Sunday Times report suggested that data on c.27 million customers was on offer, including gender, age, postcode, browsing and mobile activity including location and timing of calls and texts. Ipsos MORI, on its web site (www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/latestnews/1390/Ipsos-MORI-response-to-the-Sunday-Times.aspx ), 'absolutely refutes the suggestion that it is offering access to individual personal data for sale' and said its 'cutting edge' analytics 'explore user volume, demographics and mobile web use from anonymised and aggregated groups of people.' It adds: 'We have taken every care to ensure it is being carried out in compliance with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements, including the Data Protection Act and Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (both as amended).'

Far from keeping quiet about the partnership, the firm presented a paper on the ways it and EE were using the data, at the recent MRS Conference. However at the time it had not, as far as DRNO understands, been talking to the Met Police - who have confirmed that an 'initial meeting' has taken place to discuss how the data might be used to tackle crime.

Ipsos MORI says that its own access to the data only includes 'the volume of people who have visited a website domain, but [not] the detail of individual visits, nor what information is entered on that domain' and does not include 'access to any names, personal address information, nor postcodes or phone numbers'.

Other mobile operators including O2 and Vodafone are also involved in providing analytics on customer behaviour, the former through its parent company Telefonica which has set up a digital insights team.

Proposals for a Communications Data Bill giving greater powers to investigate crime online and labelled by some as a 'Snoopers' Charter' were left out of last week's Queen's Speech, with opposition from the LibDems cited as a factor.