The Charity Commission has amended its guidance on telephone fundraising to make it clear that all charities who use the practice must comply with data protection legislation.

In a statement, the Commission confirmed that it updated section 5.4 of its Charities and Fundraising (CC20) to reflect similar changes made to the IoF’s Codes of Fundraising Practice last week. The update clarifies that trustees must ensure that any telephone fundraising made by their charity complies with data protection and Telephone Preference Service legislation.

The updated section now reads that telephone fundraising is subject “to data protection legislation including the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations. These define the circumstances in which an individual must not be contacted by telephone for marketing purposes. Trustees must ensure that any telephone fundraising for their charity complies with these requirements.”

The section also directs charity trustees to the Information Commissioner’s Office guidance on direct marketing and the recently updated chapter on telephone fundraising in the IoF’s code.

A spokeswoman from the Commission confirmed that the regulator will consult the sector’s umbrella bodies on an updated version of the whole CC20 in October.

William Shawcross, chair of the Charity Commission, first announced that the regulator would be looking to strengthen its fundraising guidance in June, in the wake of a media and public backlash against fundraising methods in general.

The IoF updated its code last week, after representatives of the ICO announced that charities found to be making “unsolicited telemarketing calls” to Telephone Preference Service-registered numbers were in breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations and would be subject to fines of up to £500,000.

Daniel Fluskey, head of policy and research at the IoF, said of the ICO’s tough stance on TPS: “While it is of course crucial that all charities fundraise according to the law, we are really concerned about charities not being able to contact individuals who have existing and long-standing relationships with charities – this will have a severe and significant impact on the amount of money that charities can raise, and threaten the sustainability of some organisations.”