Personal Information – Given for One Reason, Used for Another

You walk down the street and get confronted by an organization asking you to sign their petition; you do so only to find out down the track that they have used your information for other purposes – how do you feel?

Recently an organization was “outed” for using names and contact information to add to their calling or mailing list; and when the organization was asked about this practice they simply said something on the lines of ‘people know there’ll be communication from us’.

Is this right? Remember you only gave your contact information so as to sign a petition, you didn’t, or most likely didn’t do it to be added to a phone or mailing list.

Is this another form of “chugging”?

When the NZ Privacy Office says people who give their information it is reasonable to assume they would be used to contact you, one has to wonder if this is the right attitude from a body set up to protect people’s privacy and to ensure information supplied is used for the purposes for which it is given.

In signing a petition, name, address etc are given mainly for the purposes of ensuring all names collected are bona fide.

If an organization then uses this information for other than what you supplied them for, from a personal perspective this surely must be in breach of the Privacy Act.

If you were to receive letters, emails or phone calls from an organization through this practise, would it put you off supporting them further?