Back to Basics and email marketing.
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at some email marketing signup forms. And it’s quite interesting when an organisation decides to put a tick box, although sometimes it’s the software that has a tick box that you cannot remove.
When someone is signing up for your email marketing list, you might create a form where someone can insert their email address and there’s a tick box that’s unticked and a submit button. There is no need for the tick box. This is because the lawful basis of signing them up to your marketing list is consent and consent in its most basic form is a positive informed action. By clicking the submit box, they’re showing that they have agreed to receive your marketing emails. 
You would only need to add a tick box if you were going to use the information for something else as well. For example, if you were giving away a freebie and getting people to sign up to your mailing list you would need a tick box for the newsletter because you’re intending to market to them in addition to providing the freebie information. Remember, with consent you need to be able to show when it was given. So make sure you keep a screenshot of your signup page to demonstrate what the individual was shown. And make sure that you take screenshots on a regular basis to show that there haven’t been any changes or if there have been changes what the changes are. If you are using an email marketing package like MailChimp, SendInBlue, Active Campaign etc then they should be logging when that person went onto the list, the date and time. This provides the evidence that the individual has agreed to be on the list.
I hope this helps you know whether you needs a tickbox or not but if you’ve got any questions come back to me.