Details witheld when Joining BOF

[Failing Eyesight]

It has come to our clubs attention via the membership secretary, that when members join a club (or even possibly renew) they have the option to opt out of receiving information. We have no problem with this as nobody likes junk mail etc.

However - the opt out clause also means that the clubs & associations are not given the new members details. They have the name only, no address, telephone number or email. The membership returns state 'contact details witheld'

Given that these people have joined and paid their membership it would be nice to welcome them to the club, send them a newsletter etc and even invite them to help at an event in the future. If everyone opts out, how are clubs going to run events????

Surely BOF should be looking at their DPA requirements and decide whether there should be 2 diffierent opt out options?

Has anyone else had this problem?

[IanD]

You've prompted me to test run joining my own club online through the British Orienteering web site. At the end, it says:

Data Protection: British Orienteering may sometimes be asked to provide contact details relevant to your membership to your Club and/or Association, to another British Orienteering member, to online entry providers (entry to orienteering events) and to Data Processing Agencies working on behalf of British Orienteering. Under no circumstances will British Orienteering provide your contact details to other external organisations. If you do not agree to British Orienteering using your memberships contact details in this way please check this box.

Now, I routinely tick boxes to opt out of marketing and "special offers", and can well imagine myself ticking this one without reading it carefully and realising that it would mean that the club which I was just about to join would not be able to contact me.

Obviously people should be given the option of opting-out, but I think the consequences should be made clearer. I agree that there should be two boxes, not one.

One box should be for the club and association, and make it clear that the club you join will not be able to contact you if you tick it. The other could cover the rest, other members, online entry providers etc.

This splitting into two boxes might require considerable work, changing the database etc, so I can see a reluctance to do it.

However, it would cost virtually nothing to change just the text for the single box, adding a sentence to make it crystal clear that

If you tick this box, the club you are paying to join will be unable to contact you and unable to send you a newsletter or magazine.

In my opinion, this change should be made immediately.

For those people who have already ticked the box, I think the way forward is for the club to send a welcome letter c/o British Orienteering, pointing out that the new member will receive no further communication unless they give their details to the club. I can see no problem with British Orienteering passing that on even to people who have opted out, since they would not be providing contact details.

[redkite]

just shows how daft some of our DP rules are. Someone wants to join a club, does this online, but the club is unable to get his contact details.

I would have thought that there is an augument to say that as the individual wishes to join the club his details can be forwarded to that club.

Lawyers have a habit of playing safe with the DP Act when there is no need. If you say that details will be forwarded to the club of your choice etc you should be ok. The box should be used to stop your details being sent to external parties not the club you have just paid your money to join. Use a bit of common sense.

[King Penguin]

I think one box should be adequate, it just needs rewording. Something like :
"By joining BOF you consent to your details being used by BOF for the purpose of sending you orienteering communications and for passing your details to your Region and Club so that they can do the same. BOF will never provide your details to non-orienteering related organisations. If you do not wish other orienteering organisations (e.g. online entry systems) to receive your data please click this box".
The text already says BOF will never provide your data to any external organisations. As far as I am concerned your Club and Region are internal, not external, so the only organisations you should be opting out of are the likes of Fabian4.
Do BOF really filter their database and not send BOF/SI/EMIT numbers to entry and results system providers ?

[SAL]

It's not just new members - for anyone who ticks the box on their renewal form, the online membership return says "Contact details withheld at request of member". This means the club membership secretary can't check they still have the current details for members who have renewed.
I thought about ticking the box on our renewal form, to stop our details being passed on to "Data Processing Agencies working on behalf of British Orienteering", but then realised this would also mean they wouldn't be included in the database for online entry, which could be very inconvenient, so I didn't tick it.
For new members, the membership secretary gets an email when a new person joins, and this at least includes their email address. But I think it's ridiculous that the full contact details aren't being passed on to the club the person is joining. Why would anyone want to prevent their details being passed on to their club? I'm sure that people don't realise this is what will happen. I emailed BOF about it, and the reply was, "The Members who have opted out of releasing their data have also requested that it is not released to clubs. We will speak with a data protection expert to see if we can at least release their address. I will get back to you, but it may take a couple of weeks."
Sudden thought - are the details passed on to the Region?
I think that if they're going to apply the rules this way, there should be more than one opt-out question, because the things included are very different.

[redkite]

This is a bit like buying a 'handbag' online and then data protection stopping the vendor from supplying the vendees address to the shipping company. utterly bonkers

[Failing Eyesight]

This is exactly the problem we have ... it could be that we have a whole club full of members whom we cant contact.

They certainly wont get their monies worth, no club newsletter, no association newsletter - absolutley diddly squat !!!

When events have to be cancelled due to lack of help etc, will BOF step in and supply the volunteers?... because we cant ask them.

I really do think BOF need to reconsider this, and quickly.

[bac0990]

Must say that this appears to be a very silly situation to be in.

There must be hundreds of clubs and organisations out there that have similar membership lists - I certainly get mailing from my running club and cycle club but have no recollection of opt-out boxes.

How do these people manage it and yet is an issue for us? Indeed, why is it only an issue now when the DPA is dated 1998?

That said, I have spent over an hour reading material on the Information Commissioner’s Office web site - it is not at all clear to me what we should be doing.

[Zokko!]

There's more to this than just contacting new members, which is obviously a requirement. Allowing people to opt out of being included on the database used for electronic entries - Does this include the SI card owners in the list we can download from SI UK? If so Autodownload is going to gradually lose its usefulness as SI card owners disappear from the list but still turn up at events, and need to be entered on the system. Also, would a new member realise that excluding themselves from on-line entry systems might become a nuisance in future, as they possibly have never pre-entered an event when first joining? Will there be a mechanism to reverse the opt out at a later date?

The opt out question has to explain exactly what the member is opting out of, in enough detail to enable a sensible decision to be made.

[roadrunner]

I find this utterly amazing. Surely, if you pay a membership fee to BOF to join BOF, your local association and your local club, then BOF is just collecting your membership fee for the other bodies as a convenience, and is entitled to pass your details on to them regardless.

It would be a lot more logical if you joined your local club, which then passed on an affiliation fee to BOF and the local association - after all, isn't it the club rather than BOF that you'd expect to have most dealings with?

I'm no expert on data protection, but I would have thought the way round it was a statement saying that if you fill in the membership form, your details will be passed to your chosen club and association; if you don't want that to happen, don't fill in the form.

[Failing Eyesight]

I feel that people do join their local clubs and associations, it is normally through local events run by a club that they decide to join. They do not think 'lets join BOF and go orienteering'

It use to be that people joined through the local club so obvioulsy all details were received and held by them, now that you have to join through BOF that has been taken away and BOF even have the cheek not to tell us who has joined. This is not their decision, it should be down to the individual.

I feel that if BOF contact the Information Commisioner's Office, http://www.ico.gov.uk/ A decision needs to be made asap as clubs are going to start looking daft.

With the JK, British Champs, Compass Sport first rounds coming up, we cant even ask if they would like to run in relays or compete for the club. This is madness.

Rant over ... for now

[SAL]

We encourage people to join via the club, then give them a part-completed BOF form to check and send in. This works well - we know about them straight away and can give them a proper welcome. It also saves any hassle, e.g. if they're not sure which membership level to choose or what to put for Association. And it saves BOF the trouble of banking and then passing on their fee (and we don't have to wait for the fee).
Difficulties occur when someone joins via the BOF website - sometimes we haven't found out about them for months, AND they are overcharged (SOA waives the first year's fee for new people, but the BOF website makes no provision for this). Hopefully with the new system we will at least find out a bit quicker, even if we do then have to email them to ask for their full details.

[Clive Coles]

I agree with many of the comments. But it is not the law that is the ass.

Has any club actually complained to BOF ? Until you do BOF will not change their stance.

For now I guess they believe they are right and that their interpretation of the act is not causing a problem for clubs and team captains.

There are official ways of getting things changed ~ Nopesport is only a forum. Time to make your views known.

[IanD]

Has any club actually complained to BOF ? Until you do BOF will not change their stance.

No need to complain. Just include your 'details withheld' members on every club mailing, electronic or postal. Send to BOF for forwarding, which BOF can and must do. Can do since they have the addresses and forwarding stuff does not release the members' details. Must do since they have collected a club membership fee along with their own, and will be in breach of implied contract if they obstruct the membership getting the benefit of that fee.

This way, everybody will be happy - except the BOF staff who get the extra work; they are best placed to get the system changed.

[Gross]

Ian has come up with the best solution.... love it