Direct marketers face bar on electoral roll data

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 11-Jul-08, 10:50

LONDON - Councils should be prevented from selling electoral roll data to marketers under a proposal that has emerged from the data-sharing review commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year.

The review was carried out by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and Dr Mark Walport, the director of the Wellcome Trust.

Its final report has now been completed and it calls on the government to overhaul the law on the collection and sharing of personal data in response to "evaporating" public confidence in how personal information is safeguarded.

One of its series of recommendations is that local councils should be prevented from selling edited information collected from their electoral rolls for use in direct marketing.

The Direct Marketing Association has opposed the recommendation, claiming that the edited register is an "essential tool" for marketers to preserve their data accuracy and better target their audience.

Caroline Roberts, the association's director of public and legal affairs, said: "Everyone agrees that direct mail should be correctly targeted and access to the edited electoral register is an efficient way of verifying data to do just that."

Each year the register is updated and people are able to opt-out of being included on the edited register.

The opt-out rate has climbed to 40% in the latest roll, from 20% in 2002 -- the first year in which opt-out was allowed.

The report said that selling electoral roll data sends "a particularly poor message to the public that personal information collected for something as vital as participation in the democratic process can be sold to anyone for any purpose".

Another key recommendation in the report is that the ICO be given the power to impose a £10 fine for each person affected by data breaches or losses. With HMRC having lost two discs containing the details of 25m child benefit claimants last year, the Government itself would have been liable to a £250m fine.

The report will be published on the Ministry of Justice website at noon.

Comments

JULIAN BRAY - 12/07/2008

As the opt-out rate has already reached 40% there seems little point is continuing with this type of direct mail. In fact the wholoe of tghe direct mail business if it went out of buisness overnight few would mourn its passsing. To be fair the Royal mail would be in trouble. There are however many other ways of list generation so expect to see something fill the gap within na few weeks! Regards Julian Brya http://eventandroadshowplanners.com

Adam Powell - 14/07/2008

I think you might find that direct mail would be missed. Look at the figures on dmis to see how much money os spent via DM in this country every year. Consumers may complain - and that is their right - but most people still purchase through DM or make purchases based on info / offers from DM every year. Without access to the edited ER there would be a major issue in ensuring that contact records could be accurately maintained - driving up the level of mistargeted, badly addressed or plain undeliverable items. Then the consumers really would have something to complain about and the Govt. could truly justify the bashing that it gives to the DM sector. In addition to this - what kind of impact would the loss of DM have on the UK economy - how many people are employed directly in the sector and how many more are employed in businesses that depend (to some extent or other) on the money spent on b2c direct mail? Yes, there would be other datasets to fill some of the void; and no, the ER is not free from faults - but it is a massive volume universal file that has an essential part to play in verifying, cleaning and updating the significant majority of lists and datasets available to the direct marketer.