Pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU and an insurance company owned by its founder Arron Banks face total fines of £135,000 over breaches of data laws.

This fine was given by the Information Commissioner Office for the misuse of personal data by political campaigns. It has been reported that over a million emails were sent out containing marketing for the Eldon Insurance firm’s GoSkippy services.

Mr Banks attempted to defend himself by stating that “we may have accidentally sent a newsletter to customers” but there was “no evidence of a grand data conspiracy”. He also reportedly added “Gosh, we communicated with our supporters and offered them a 10% Brexit discount after the vote! So what?”.

Since the EU in a referendum in June 2016 there have been several investigations assessing how the different campaigns were run, including into how they were funded and how they used personal data. The ICO said this had been the “most complex data protection investigation” it had ever carried out, through which they had uncovered a “disturbing disregard for voters’ personal privacy”.

Elsewhere in the report, it highlights what it says is the close relationship between Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance. Both organisations face fines of £60,000 for emails which breached data laws. It also imposed a £15,000 fine for a separate “serious” breach after a Leave.EU newsletter was sent to more than 319,000 email addresses on Eldon’s customer database.

The use of personal data to target political messages has to be transparent and lawful. It has been shown that personal privacy rights have been compromised. Misuse of personal information threatens the integrity of an election process and results in uncertainty as to whether individuals were unknowingly influenced to vote a certain way in the UK EU referendum.