Electoral Registers Before 2002

The UK Information Commissioner has acted to prevent the use of electoral register information from prior to 2002. The full text of the ICO Press Release explains that prior to 2002 individuals had no choice over whether their personal details from the electoral register were sold on to other organisations, and that the ICO considers that the use of these electoral registers does not comply with the first principle of the Data Protection Act.

THE UK PEOPLES ACT

AFD Names & Numbers and TraceMaster are address management products, based on many different data streams – including historic Electoral Rolls, current Electoral Rolls, the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File, Telephone Subscriber information and several commercial and business data files. The UK Government has passed a new Act – The People’s Act 2000 – that is affecting availability and access to future UK Electoral Roll data sets, collected during and after 2002.

Electoral Roll being collected after 2002 contains an “Opt-Out” facility, for those who do not wish their name to appear on the “Edited Roll”. Individuals who do not choose this opt-out will be included on the “Edited Roll”, and their details will be available for any purpose. Only certain authorised organisation may access the Full Electoral Roll – and such organisations must make individual application to AFD in order to obtain versions of AFD Names & Numbers based on the full electoral roll.

Historic electoral rolls, and commercial databases remain available as references to check the Edited Roll, and to help identify information missing from it. AFD has also obtained access to a rapidly developing Data Exchange initiative – which has been part of our contingency against legislation preventing access to the Full Electoral Roll. This Exchange currently holds 20 million records – and coupled with access to the “Edited Roll”, gives confidence that about the quantity and quality of data our Names & Numbers or TraceMaster products. Where individuals have expressed an indication that they do not wish their details to be used for marketing purposes by opting out of the Edited Roll, AFD will of course, respect this in versions of our products used for marketing purposes.

AFD have been planning for these changes for some time, and have taken steps to ensure the highest possible quality of data within Names & Numbers. We are committed to providing the very best and most comprehensive data within Names & Numbers – but we have the highest respect for the laws of the land – and ensure that all the data within our products is properly licensed, and used within the correct legal framework.

mailLink mailLink

We are here to help

We serve thousands of organisations and a network of hundreds of partners across multiple industry sectors, enabling them to have full confidence in their contact data.