CraigH

By law. if you have had email correspondence by a company and you happen to lose these emails for whatever reason, can you (the consumer) ask/demand for all correspondence between the 2 parties?

Have looked at data protection act etc but not really found anything.

Cheers in advance again.

mart360

If my memory serves me correctly,

all emails sent from a company ( providing the y identify who the companys is carry the same legal weighting as a letter.. hence the disclaimer at the bottom usuallly

also all companys are required bt the data protection act to keep copys af all emails sent ( believe its two years)

if they have any data/ correspondance relating to you, and the company are bound by the data protection act, its an offence not to disclose when asked,,, they may charge though

Mart

Tiggs

interesting question, i would have thought not? if we kept every email sent we would.....have a lot of emails!

Tiggs

yep- 2 years makes sense

speedking

The DPA only applies to personal information, name, NI number, medical records, etc. If you e-mail a company asking for some product info., then unless they enter your details onto an electronic database then they are not obliged to record that 'conversation'.

Companies are only obliged to divulge personal info. kept (at a price) and if they don't keep it then obviously they don't have to divulge it.

Otherwise you could just mailbomb a company with loads of spurious personal info. and then ask them for it back 2 years later Don't think so.

Buckrogers

There seems to be a general myth that the DPA applies to all companies that collect personal customer data, this is just not true.

I have read through the rules and regs on the DPA site and my company does not legally have to comply with the DPA regs, but I will for piece of mind for the customer.

CraigH

cheers,

Was hoping that a company would be legally obliged to forward any correspondence between 2 parties if it was asked for

damian666

speedking, would you not classify an email address as personal information?

seejay555

Why would/should a company's obligations be any different than if you were writing "old-stylee" paper letters to them?
It's just like you losing letters that they had sent to you and asking for their own copies of their letters - a ball-ache for them and not something they are legally obliged to do (IMHO).

speedking

I would class an e-mail address as personal information.

If a company stored that information on a database and you asked it, then it would have to tell you what your address is

An email requesting product data for example is not personal information. If however a company asked for your age and then processed that to obtain a customer profile then that would constitute personal data. Again, if you made a request then they would have to tell you what your age is

The DPA really comes into effect when your personal data is incorrect (bad debt flags), or passed to third parties to consolidate, e.g. Boots know you buy condoms, your bank knows you are 65 years old, a third party consolidates the two and you get bombarded with adverts for Viagra

speedking

@seejay555: I believe that a company's responsibilities under the DPA only apply to electronically held data (but I believe that this extends to scanned images as well as text). I guess because of the ease and speed with which such data can be propagated and processed.

damian666

Speedking, the DPA applies to all personal information, whether electronically stored or not.

chiark

The DPA originally applied only to electronic records. This has changed with the DPA 1998, but there is a moritorium on the use of manual systems at the moment; that will change.

Oh, and as for not applying to you - well, I think you might be wrong. In short, if you hold information on people for non-domestic purposes then you will be subject to restrictions imposed by the DPA.

I am personally fed up of companies thinking my personal data is theirs to use as they see fit, and am taking a stance. If people fail to respond, I will apply for a court order against them.

Have a look on informationcommissioner.gov.uk, specifically http://www.informationcommissioner.g...ual.aspx?id=86 for how to make a complaint if you feel your personal data has been abused.

Cheers,
nick.