Mobile Phone Number Directory Raises Privacy Issues
You know those little tick boxes that you get on everything nowadays that ask you to check (or uncheck) you are happy to have you details sold across the world? Well have you ever wondered what happens if you don’t (or do) select that option? Well here’s an answer, you get included in a mobile phone number directory.
Since 2007 Connectivity (the company behind the directory enquiries service 118 800) have been through a load of these lists and managed to compile a list of around 15million mobile phone numbers which will now be accessible through the website and via the landline number.
Shona Forster, 118800’s Marketing Director defended this tactic by saying “We are accessing data in the same way that lots of other companies do for marketing purposes… The difference is that we don’t use that data for marketing purposes and we don’t sell it on to anybody else”.
There are a few obvious problems with this the most blatant being one of privacy. Surely it is an invasion of our civil liberties to ‘harvest’ these numbers and put them into a database which people can access without our permission? Apparently not, although interestingly the original intention was to contact everyone to ensure that they wanted to opt into the system but that was quietly dropped (probably because they realised that no one would say yes!).
In fact this probably would be verging on the illegal if it wasn’t for that the fact they don’t physically give you the number, rather they contact the phone in question (either by phoning if you use the 118 800 number, or by texting if you choose to do it through the website) and ask them whether they are happy to be put through – much akin to the method used by reverse charge calls.
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