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Home Blogs Diary 2016 05

Stronger In disregards Data Protection Act

19th May 2016

A couple of months ago I explained that you can stop (or prevent) personally addressed EU referendum junk mail using a data protection notice (see How to stop EU referendum junk mail). These notices are legally binding under Section 11 of the Data Protection Act, and I've never encountered an organisation that simply disregards them. That is, until today.

Junk mail from the Stronger In campaign.

The offender is Stronger In. Someone I know sent a data protection notice to Stronger In (contact@strongerin.co.uk) in March. The e-mail was received all right – the person got an automated acknowledgement e-mail from Bethan Griffiths, the office manager. It looks though like Bethan decided to simply bin the notice. Or perhaps she was too busy trying to persuade Richard Brandson to be used as an expert on Britain's EU membership – the back of the mail-out features a picture and quote from Mr Junk Mail.

Although I'm personally reluctantly in favour of Europe – if only because I'm an evil immigrant myself and because I can't stand the bigoted nonsense uttered by many Brexit supporters – I have to say that Leave.EU does respect data protection notices. When you send them a data protection notice they'll remove your personal details from their junk mail database and send you a polite e-mail to confirm that they've done so.

Ironically, the Data Protection Act is the UK's implementation of the European Union's Data Protection Directive.

Last updated: 
19th May 2016

Comments

I received a Referendum Communication in the post today from Vote Leave, addressed to:

MyLastName MyFirstName MyMiddleInitial

As I am registered with the Mail Preference Service I can only assume that they are not respecting my preference for this particularly annoying form of junk mail.

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