The Executive Director of the Data Protection Commission has warned participants at the maiden Social Media Summit that they could be jailed or fined for sending marketing content to people on social media without the consent of the recipients.

Teki Akuetteh Falconer during her presentation said that there are laws such as the data protection law in place to protect the privacy of people and as such companies should be careful with the messages they put out, especially on social media.

She explained that according to the data protection law “targeting particular individuals with your message” is direct marketing and as such, they need to make sure that they are “satisfying the requirements of consent under the law”.

She urged them to put policies in place to control the information they share on social media.

Mrs Falconer added that businesses “must be careful of the nature of the information that we are putting out there. If it’s very direct we should ensure that we’re using tools that make it possible for the individuals to consent or not to consent to receiving that information”.