Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce legislation to ban tracking pixels in emails.

The use of tracking technology is already regulated by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation. This legislation gives individuals specific privacy rights in relation to organisations’ use of cookies, tracking pixels and similar technologies that track information about people accessing a website or other electronic services. It also requires organisations to give people clear and comprehensive information about the use of tracking technologies, and a choice about whether or not they are applied on devices.

The ICO has produced the attached guidance for organisations on the use of tracking technologies, available on its website at:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/guidance-on-the-use-of-cookies-and-similar-technologies/what-are-cookies-and-similar-technologies/#cookies5