Troubles on the Doorstep for UK Consumer Survey

In the UK a subsidiary of courier company TNT has been accused of potentially providing burglars and identity thieves with a goldmine of personal information about survey respondents. The BBC's Watchdog programme says Doordrop Media's approach runs counter to data protection laws which demand such information is handled securely.

The survey, sponsored by major UK brands such as N-Power, Unilever and TalkTalk, has been delivered to a million households in the UK and includes 186 questions over five pages: thus far, it's not so different to many other long consumer surveys delivered by post, but this one differs in asking respondents to leave the completed form on the doorstep for collection by 9am the following day. Respondents are promised a box of Thornton's chocolates in return for their trouble.

Will Geddes, CEO of security advisor International Corporate Protection, told the BBC: 'This is a criminal's charter. I mean, if I was an identity thief, I could take over your life with this. The only thing that's missing here is a bank account number and a sort code. Once I have those two pieces of information, I have your life completely'. Information requested includes the consumer's name, address and postcode, email address, landline and mobile phone number, dates of birth of children, and details of partner or spouse.

Similarly, ex-burglar and home security expert Mike Fraser told Watchdog: 'It's a survey and it's actually asking every bit of information that anybody would want if they wanted to burgle a house'.

As a test, two members of the Watchdog team were asked to complete the surveys and two other members were given twenty-four hours to see what they could do with the information on the form: in the words of the BBC, 'they discovered that they could set up a store account, change the password on a mobile phone account, order a new mobile to be sent to the address of their choice and get copies of a utility bill sent to an entirely different address.'

Doordrop Media MD Mark Davies said the Household Insight Survey was 'fully compliant with the Data Protection Act'; was 'regularly reviewed by leading independent security consultants'; and had 'been running for 12 years' with 'not one recorded incident of data theft'. The company confirms that respondents are given 'a specified collection date and time and the option for postal response' and that 'Doordrop Media staff collect from their allocated street at the allotted times'.

The Information Commissioner's Office have previously stated that 'it is clearly not best practice for organisations to ask people to leave forms containing personal information on the doorstep', in response to a 2007 investigation of the same survey by the Observer. It now reiterates that 'Anyone approached to fill in one of these surveys should think twice before leaving information like this on their doorstep. They should be aware that anyone could potentially pick it up, opening the way to identity theft.'

The full story including a seven minute video from the programme is available at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2010/11/tnt_survey.html .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.