What Is PECR?

PECR is the UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, the law implementing the EU ePrivacy Directive that governs electronic marketing — email, SMS, phone calls — plus cookies and similar technologies. For cold email, the key provision is Regulation 22: unsolicited marketing email to individual subscribers requires prior consent or an existing customer relationship (the soft opt-in). Corporate subscribers — limited companies and limited liability partnerships — are not covered by that consent requirement, which is why B2B cold email to people at their company addresses is lawful in the UK, provided the sender identifies themselves and gives a valid address for opt-out requests. Sole traders and most partnerships count as individual subscribers, so they fall under the consent rule. PECR is enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which can issue fines of up to £500,000, and it applies alongside the UK GDPR, which separately governs the processing of personal data such as named work email addresses.

PECR in Practice

In practice, UK-compliant cold email means three things: send only to corporate subscribers (screen out sole traders and partnerships where the data lets you), identify your business clearly in every message, and provide a working opt-out that you honor promptly with a suppression list. Because a named work email address is personal data, UK GDPR also requires a lawful basis — legitimate interests is the standard one for B2B outreach, and it should be documented with a legitimate interests assessment covering why the message is relevant to the recipient's role. The common mistake is conflating the two laws: teams either assume GDPR consent rules ban all UK cold email (they do not — PECR's corporate subscriber exemption is what governs the sending itself) or assume the exemption removes GDPR obligations entirely (it does not — data sourcing, transparency, and objection rights still apply). Agencies running UK campaigns should be able to explain both layers before a client signs.