Junk mail deluge: Government urged to change law to protect households

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... ouseholds/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A loophole which allows firms to send households unaddressed junk mail must be closed, MPs and charities have said, as residents begin a rebellion against the Royal Mail.

Pressure is mounting on the Government to protect people from unaddressed mail ahead of an anticipated increase, following a data crackdown later this month.

At present the Mail Preference Service, used by 6.5 million people a year, lets households opt out of receiving addressed junk letters, however it does not stop unaddressed mail.

This is despite unaddressed mail accounting for around a third of all UK mail, according to Citizens Advice.


Last night MPs called on the Government and regulators to do more to protect households and the environment against the rise in unwanted and "irresponsible" junk mail.


Mary Creagh MP, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said: “Ministers need to do more to stop this unwanted and wasteful nuisance. Junk mail is an irresponsible waste of paper, plastic and people’s time and reducing the amount of junk mail would save trees and reduce litter.”

And Julian Knight, Conservative MP and member of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said: "People need to let Royal Mail know that this is unacceptable. The Information Commissioner's Office needs to urgently investigate Royal Mail and close the loophole.

It should work with Ofcom, which is arguably the most powerful regulator in Europe, to work out what to do.

"It could be that the 1983 Mail Preference Services rules need to be extended to unaddressed mail. Back then it was not seen as much of a problem but the world has changed."

Rachel Aldighieri, managing director at the Direct Marketing Association, which runs the MPS, said: "We would welcome an update to the MPS to include unaddressed mail. For this to be successful it requires cross-industry collaboration.


Previous attempts to update it have been unsuccessful as not all stakeholders were in agreement.”

The Royal Mail is already making an estimated £184 million a year by putting nearly three billion unaddressed marketing leaflets in the post, calculations show.

On Wednesday it emerged that the Royal Mail has urged businesses to send more unaddressed mail to households as a way to get around new stricter data protection laws coming in on May 25.

Under EU laws businesses must have permission or a legitimate reason to send messages to members of the public.


Since then the Daily Telegraph has been contacted by a number of readers who said they were starting to fight back against Royal Mail's junk mail drive by reposting unwanted letters in its famous red post boxes. Others complained that the Mail Preference Service was unfit for purpose, saying it was difficult to sign up to, with members not fully protected from junk mail.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “People need a consistent and straightforward process for opting out of junk mail. Since around a third of all letters sent in the UK are unaddressed, any effective system needs to cover those too.

“Right now it’s confusing for consumers, with at least four different bodies offering some form of opt out. Consumers who want to stop getting junk mail should be able to do so easily."

A Royal Mail spokesman said:"Our opt-out scheme is an effective way for householders to stop receiving unaddressed mail if they so wish."

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Taken from the same Article:

At a glance | Your data rights
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a tough regulation regime for companies that gather personal data, introduced by the EU in April 2016. Enforcement begins 25 May 2018.

The GDPR legislates eight data rights for individuals:

Right to be informed – You must be clearly informed when your data is collected and the purpose for which it is intended.

Right of access – You must be allowed to view the data companies have gathered on you.

Right to rectification – You have the right to correct erroneous information about yourself in a company’s data records.

Right of erasure – Also known as the “right to be forgotten”. You have the right to request the deletion of personal data held on you, although this right is not absolute.

Right to restrict processing – You can request the suppression of your personal data file, or restrict its processing.

Right to data portability – You have the right to take the data a company has collected on you and share it elsewhere, eg. to get a better customer deal.

Right to object – You have the right to object and prevent your data being used for particular purposes, eg. for direct marketing. This right is superseded by legal claims.

Rights related to automatic decision-making – You may only be profiled with your explicit consent, where this is necessary to enter into a contract or where such processing is authorised by the state.

Post-Brexit the UK is likely to introduce its own equivalent data protection law. In any case, companies which gather data on EU citizens will have to abide by the GDPR.

[Celgar]

It sounds like the Telegraph or whoever is blaming RM for every piece of unaddressed mail that arrives through everyone's letterbox. The Telegraph should point out that people can easily opt out of RM unaddressed mail otherwise known as D2D opt out. If googled it will come up fairly easily. I suspect most people don't know about this though and a postie was suspended a while back for pointing out to their customers that this was possible. The RM D2D opt-out lasts two years so has to be renewed periodically.