12-08-2013, 03:32 PM
Gerard Blake Wrote:Michael Hanley Wrote:The e-mail addresses of members is available from the grading programme, just click on the players name and the information is there.
The grading programme can be downloaded by anybody from the website.
That being the case, the data has been collected for a particular purpose and if it is used for another purpose then it is a breach of the Data Protection Act which can result in serious penalties for the perpetrator.
In principal Gerard, but it's very difficult to prove how someone acquired someone else's email address, and therefore very difficult to prove whether correspondence is unsolicited or not. And - for example - if you enter a Congress by email and the organiser then uses your email in subsequent years to invite you to their event again, this wouldn't be considered unsolicited email unless you have already specifically requested them not to contact you in this way. And another example that happens all the time is if you wanted to ask someone at my club something and got their email address from me, I wouldn't be breaking the data protection act by giving you their information, and your email to them would almost never be considered unsolicited. If it were, then sending emails would be far too risky all the time to be worthwhile doing.
The data protection act is more concerned with how organisations store and use sensitive information, such as credit card details, medical records, legal papers etc. Misuse of this type of data by organisations is the only situation really likely to incurr heavy fines.