Councils face ban on selling voter lists to curb junk mail

The move will make it harder for firms to track people down when they move house - and could limit the amount of mail sent out.

An official inquiry has criticised the way councils have been selling the names and addresses of tens of millions of householders to direct marketing firms. 

Personal information ban: Councils will be prevented from selling home addresses off the electoral register to junk mail companies

These details have been used to help send out three billion junk mail items each year.

The long-awaited report - which is expected to be adopted by ministers - was written by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and Dr Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust. 

They had been asked by Gordon Brown to examine the use of personal information in the private and public sector.

Their report said that the 'edited' electoral roll which is sold by local authorities in electronic form should be scrapped.

This roll contains the names of anyone who fails to opt out when filling in their electoral registration card each year - currently around 60 per cent of householders or 15million.

It is used by marketing firms to cross-reference the data they hold on us from other sources. 

Companies will still be free to carry on using the information they have purchased from councils, and to ask their customers to provide names and addresses to be used for marketing.

Direct marketing firms reacted with anger to the proposals. They warned that banning access to the roll would result in more unwanted letters on doormats.

But others believe that the opposite would result - that firms would eventually send out less junk as they cannot be sure they are reaching their intended market.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, joint author of yesterday's report, said the proposal amounted to a return to the pre-Internet age, with copies of the electoral roll only available in public libraries and council offices.

His report said: 'We feel that selling the edited register is an unsatisfactory way for local authorities to treat personal information.

'It sends a particularly poor message to the public that personal information collected for something as vital as participation in the democratic process can be sold to anyone for any purpose.'

The report said that the opt-out directions were often written in 'confusing' language, and householders did not realise what they were agreeing to. Everybody has to be on the full electoral register, but this cannot be bought or sold, and is available in paper form only.

A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said: 'It is our view as a matter of principle that the register should be compiled exclusively for electoral and other limited statutory purposes.'

But the Direct Marketing Association said: 'Everyone agrees that direct mail should be correctly targeted and access to the edited electoral register is an efficient way of verifying data to do just that. As an industry, we are quite rightly called upon to limit the amount of waste paper we produce. Using appropriate targeting techniques, such as cleansing data and suppression files, is in line with our environmental agenda.

'Removing access to the edited register for data cleaning purposes will make it harder for marketers to target accurately and effectively.'

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said the sales of the roll raise 'no more than a few thousand pounds a year for most town halls'.

Yesterday's 75-page report also said the public should have a right to know with whom a company shares, exchanges or sells information about them.

It also said the Information Commissioner should have the power to impose massive fines against companies or government bodies which deliberately or recklessly breach privacy rules.

Fines could be £10 for each person whose details are released. In the case of the HMRC blunder - in which the details of 25million child benefit claimants were lost when two discs went missing - the fine would have been £250million.

The free pass to a lady's little secret

Women who lie about their age to their husbands have been rumbled when receiving an unsolicited free bus pass, the inquiry into privacy of personal data found.

The report said it was an example of where the authorities had to be careful on acting on the information they hold.

Free bus travel across England at off-peak times has been available from April 2008 for anyone over 60. But instead of waiting for applications, councils have been sending passes out automatically on or around a person's birthday.

The report stopped short of saying this practice should end, but urged councils to think carefully about whether a majority would rather apply.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, who co-authored the report, said: 'Women whose husbands thought they were 50 got their bus pass and were not terribly pleased.' 

Young jobseekers 'haunted by Facebook'

Regret: Some young jobseekers are wishing they hadn't revealed so much personal information on social networking websites

The first generation of social networking site users are apparently beginning to regret some of their actions.

Teenagers who posted embarrassing pictures and information about themselves on the likes of MySpace, Bebo or Facebook are reaching an age where they are applying for jobs.

The inquiry into personal data said these youngsters are finding that details about their past - which they would rather not advertise - are openly available on the internet to prospective employers.

On Facebook, for example, more than 150,000 girls have signed up to an online forum '30 Reasons Girls Should Call It A Night', where they post pictures of and discuss the various states of inebriation they have found themselves in.

Mark Walport, the review's joint author, said: 'There are worries that some of the information that particularly the young people post on the internet, particularly through Facebook and other sites, may come back to bite them.'