Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has recommended abolishing the Edited Electoral Register. If accepted, local councils will no longer be legally obliged to sell voters' name and address to junk mailers.

Preventing the Electoral Register is used as commodity is one of nineteen recommendations in the Data Sharing Review produced by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and Wellcome Trust director Dr Mark Walport. The review into the way the public and private sector handles personal information was ordered October last year after HM Revenue and Customs lost the personal details of 25 million people.

Thomas and Walport call for a "cultural change" in the way personal information is handled by government and private companies. Part of that change should be abolishing the 'edited version' of the Electoral Register, the review says. At present, local authorities are by law required to sell the Edited Electoral Register to anyone prepared to pay a small fee. The list contains the names and addresses of all electors who have not opted out of appearing on this version of the roll. The Edited Electoral Register is often used to produce junk mail lists.

Poor message

An estimated 40% of voters is presently opted out of being on the edited version of the electoral roll. The report suggests this figure would be much higher if only people were aware of what exactly the Edited Electoral Register is about. In the words of Thomas Walport: "the language used on electoral registration forms can be confusing and many people do not realise it is the Edited Register that is on public sale".

Lack of clarity about the Edited Electoral Register is not the only problem, according to Thomas and Walport. Selling voters' personal details is wrong in principle: "We feel that selling the Edited Register is an unsatisfactory way for local authorities to treat personal information. It 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'."

"We therefore recommend that the Government removes the provision allowing the sale of the Edited Electoral Register. The Edited Register would therefore no longer serve any purpose and so should be abolished."

Commercial purposes

The recommendations in the report have been endorsed by the Electoral Commission, which regulates elections. A spokesman for the Commission said: "Our view is that, as a matter of principle, electoral registers should be compiled exclusively for electoral and other limited statutory purposes and that they should not be made available for sale for commercial purposes."

However, Caroline Roberts, director of Public and Legal Affairs at the Direct Marketing Association said the Edited Register is an important tool for marketeers when creating bulk mail lists: "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.

"Marketeers use data from many different sources to help with accurate targeting and the edited register is an additional layer to ensure data accuracy. Removing access to the edited register for data cleaning purposes will make it harder for marketers to target accurately and effectively."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We agree that measures need to be taken to increase public trust and confidence in the handling and processing of personal data by the public and private sectors.

"We will assess the other recommendations in the report in further detail and issue a more detailed statement once we have had time to fully consider the implications and costs of bringing about such changes".