Marketers welcome reprieve for electoral data access
3 Jul 2009
Marketers have welcomed the withdrawal of a proposal that would have abolished the edited electoral register in a House of Lords debate last month on the Political Parties and Elections Bill.
Lord Norton withdrew his amendment to the bill following a commitment by the Government to consult more widely on the issue of the electoral register.
ISBA, the voice of British advertisers, says abolishing the edited version of the register, used by advertisers to ensure their marketing databases of individuals are up-to-date, would make it more difficult for them to comply with the Data Protection Act.
The advertiser body believes that marketers’ access to the register - a clean data source - helps to boost the accuracy of their own mailing databases, cutting down on the amount of wrongly addressed mail and reducing waste.
The consultation was promised last year after the Government said it would act on a recommendation from the Data Sharing Report, a review ordered by Gordon Brown as a result of privacy concerns.
ISBA’s Marketing Services Manager David Ellison, speaking yesterday with members of the ISBA Direct Marketing Action Group, said: “If the edited electoral register were to be withdrawn, marketers would face having to invest in more expensive data in order to verify addresses on their databases.
“It would cost them money, but more importantly it would lead to more consumer inconvenience and increased wastage through wrongly addressed mail.
“ISBA is looking forward to participating in the forthcoming Government consultation and will be ensuring that the views of direct marketers are clearly heard.”
