GDPR - Really?

[mattodd]

GDPR is live from tomorrow. I've been wondering whether we need to obtain consent for people to receive OSM Newsletters.

To my mind we do not.

The people receiving the emails, while they have not explicitly signed up to receive the newsletter, are people who have had a clear (demonstrable) interest in the past in open source drug discovery. We're not a business, and there is a clear method to opt out. I'm also concerned that there are so many GDPR-related emails going around that people may not bother to sign up again due to "subscription fatigue". There was a recent Guardian article on GDPR suggesting that the emails we've all been receiving asking people to opt in are either unnecessary or inherently illegal.

Anyone have any sound legal advice on this issue? Action needed? It can be done via our newsletter platform, Mailchimp.