GDRP & Cancelling my contract early

[Sataana]

Hi,

I have just recieved an email from O2, informing me about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - and how this will affect me.

The line I am most concerned with is "To keep you connected to our network and manage your account, we need to store some basic information"

After some research and asking around, this seems to also require a change in ToS / Contract.

I have been told that if I do not agree with this change, I am able to terminate my contract as of immidiately without a fine / fee for doing so.

I have tried to verify this using the online chat how ever, unsurprisingly, the agent did not understand my query and instead informed me of my current balance and charges.

Is there anyone on the forum that is able to verify this?
Has anyone gone through this yet?
I know that O2 is in the business of keeping costumers, so what would be the exact words to tell them to understand that the contract should be terminated immidiately as of today without fees / penalties? 

Thank you for your help!

[Anonymous]

In general significant variations to key parts of any ongoing or fixed term contract, like a pay monthly mobile phone one, esp variations regarding charges and service delivery elements might enable early termination. For example if service charges were greatly increased outside of terms, or service was seriously restricted. Though this would rarely be for free, especially if hardware is on loan or still being paid down. 

A minor change to how your data is handled to comply with legislation changes is not a significant variation and you would be extremely hard pressed to show that it was grounds for early termination to anyone from the Customer service rep through the ombudsman up to the European Court.