YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW

We spend our lives filling in forms for the Government or its Agencies, from ‘registering’ our birth, ‘registering’ to vote, completing the Census, right through to ‘registering’ our death. Along the way we fill in Tax Returns, enter our house purchase at the Land Registry, ‘register’ our address with all and sundry, including our Local Authority for Council Tax, and so on.

If we don’t comply with all these requirements, then we suffer the consequences – anything from a fine or imprisonment through to being denied the right to Vote.

But when we fill them in, the Government records the details, and then decides what is ‘confidential’ and what is not. Income tax details are confidential, most of the Census data is confidential, but almost all the rest is deemed to be ‘not confidential’.

So each Government Department puts its non-confidential information on to computer files, and SELLS or GIVES the files to anyone who wants them. Some people buy them in order to send you Junk Mail and cross reference against Cold Calling Lists, some to put the information on the Internet so that your neighbours can see what you paid for your house and if you have a mortgage, some so that they can ‘do research’, the Government doesn’t care – ANYONE can buy the files.

If you contact any Government Department, they are obliged to provide you with a copy of your file, for a FEE to cover their expenses. You could contact them all, if you knew where each one is, and it could end up costing a fair amount of time and money. This will still not actually tell you what they SELL, (and what they don’t sell,) about YOU.

We have licenced and acquired all the more common Government files, and merged them all together to create one Master File, which covers 25 MILLION households in the UK. We use this SOLELY to be able to check your file to see what your Government is prepared to SELL to ANYONE about YOU and YOUR FAMILY.

YOUR RIGHT TO OPT-OUT

We are not here to provide all sorts of chapter and verse about different Acts, and which Clause refers to which Right. We do not set you any homework writing out lots of letters with ‘sample’ paragraphs, giving you a whole list of addresses to write to.

We have contacted the Office of the Commissioner for Information, and they have confirmed that we are able to act as your personal agent in what is called ‘suppressing’ your personal information, provided that you give us a specific, authority. If you would prefer us to do all the work for you, go to our REGISTRATION page. We will ask you to complete the form, which will give us the necessary authority to: -

• Put your name and address on the Preference Services.
• Add your minimum details to any other reputable ‘suppression service’.
• Contact all of the major ‘List Brokers’
• Contact over 2000 Direct Marketers in the UK and Overseas to remove your name and number.

The effect of this service is that you should not receive unwanted telephone sales and nuisance calls from UK based and Overseas call centres, your Junk Mail should decrease, and your liability to Identity Theft should be significantly reduced due to the reduction of data about you available in the ‘free market’.

OptOutUK is a registered data controller (Z8904540) and regulated by the Information Commissioners Office.