Changes are coming in next month to the laws covering data protection. It's striking how on the whole the organisations that have already contacted me to ask whether they can go on contacting me are the ones you would judge from all the evidence that I have the strongest relationship with. When I've been a member of a charity for years, given them a direct debit authority to take my annual subscription from my bank account, supported their special appeals, bought their Christmas cards and completed their membership surveys, that indicates pretty strongly that I would like to go on hearing from them about their work. Even so they have to ask me whether I still want to receive their communications, otherwise as the RSPB solemnly warned me, I would not get their magazine ever again. It is not just the big charities that are on the case: the Barn Owl Trust who operate out of something only slightly grander than a portacabin on the fringes of Dartmoor got their request for continued contact in early as well.
In contrast, internet retailers from whom I have bought something maybe once in my life and who have taken that as an excuse to send me marketing emails at least weekly ever since, have been very backward in coming forward. I am waiting for the last minute rush. Unless there is one then an awful lot of companies, some of them household names, are going to be breaking the law as of 24 May. Unless the new law only affects charities and not commercial enterprises, which would seem bizarre.
The committee decided that the music society fell under the new regulations. We hold a list of the names of people who've bought tickets in recent years, along with their postal addresses, email addresses or both, and the Treasurer knows which of the members agreed to Gift Aid, although that is only held in hard copy. Last summer when we sent out the annual newsletter and brochure for the following year we did ask those we hadn't heard from for a few years whether they would like to go on getting our mailshot. The motive at that time was mainly to cut down on the cost of stamps. Our Treasurer was confident that as long as we asked everybody the same question again at the next mailing we would be fine, as long as we made sure we held their data securely and didn't misuse it. We were not planning to misuse it anyway, but we are nice people. That is the trouble with this sort of legislation. Scrupulous organisations like the Barn Owl Trust who were never going to make a nuisance of themselves in the first place dutifully use up some of their modest resources to make sure they comply, while I don't suppose the volume of mail in my spam folder will be any smaller by June than it was on 23 May.
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