In many cases, however, such competitions and raffles are not organised to give the participants a treat. Instead, the company is usually interested in using the addresses for advertising.
The following must be taken into account in the case of prize draws: Since data protection is generally governed by the prohibition with reservation of permission, personal data may only be used if this is explicitly permitted by law or if the data subject gives his or her consent.
For proper data protection, a separate consent of the participant must be given in the case of a competition that his/her information may be used for advertising purposes.
To put it clearly once again: While information about the use of the collected data is sufficient for mere participation, the data subject’s voluntary consent to this type of data use must be given in any case if the data is to be used for advertising.
As there is a prohibition of coupling in accordance with the GDPR, participation in the competition may not, as a rule, be made dependent on consent to the use of the information for advertising purposes.
As with all other applications, the privacy notice for a competition should also provide transparent and clear information about what happens to the users’ personal data. The following information informs about data protection in a competition:
- What information is collected and stored?
- For what purpose are they used?
- How are they processed?
In particular, if the information is also to be used for promotional purposes or for transmission to third parties, this must be clearly stated so that the participants in the competition know exactly what they are consenting to and what will happen to their personal data.
