Data Harvest Festival

David Perry, QC, must be in raptures.  For those of you who are not acquainted with David Perry, QC, he was charged with onerous task of investigating BBC TV licence fee enforcement and his findings, The Perry Review into TV LicenceEnforcement is the starting point for this blog entry. 

In his report, Perry, recommended that the BBC, or to be more precise, BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita, indulge in what he termed “basic data harvesting” to promote the efficiency of the administration and enforcement of the outdated and draconian BBC TV licence fee.

Well, it seems that his “basic data harvesting” recommendation has borne fruit.  BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita, beside themselves with flushed excitement, have flung themselves excitedly into the task of “basic data harvesting” with the voracious appetite of the new rich, and with their characteristic flagrant disregard  have exceeded the scope and remit of the task.  Writing this particular blog entry brings to mind an earlier blog entry, “Innovative or Intrusive?”.

A screenshot of one of the fruits borne of, Perry’s Review into TV Licence Enforcement, is presented below.  It is a questionnaire sent out by BBC TV Licensing contractor Capita concerning the circumstances of a change of address.

Now, we don’t know about you, but we are of the opinion that this questionnaire is a gross intrusion into the private arrangements freely and privately entered into between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes.  Our advice to anybody who receives this questionnaire from, BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita, is not to respond to it.  Once people have divulged this sensitive personal information and identified themselves in connection with a particular address they have completely lost control of how that data is used and into whose hands that information may fall.  If people have any doubt whatsoever how data will be exploited, then do not supply it.  If people have any misgivings that personal data supplied by them will be used against them, then do not supply it.  Given BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita’s TV licence fee administration and enforcement track record since 2002, the year the BBC first awarded Capita the contract, people have every reason not supply sensitive personal information about themselves to BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita.

Data harvesting by BBC TV Licensing contractor Capita is not limited to intrusive questionnaires.  Utilities and occupancy data gathered by Morrison Data Services is exploited.  Then there is the rather questionable arrangement with Acxiom in which consumer transaction data unrelated to the BBC TV licence fee is obtained and exploited.  

Interestingly, the Perry Review into TV Licence Enforcement recommended the reinstatement of the TV Dealer Notification to TV Licensing scheme abolished 25 June 2013.  Although TV Dealer Notification to TV Licensing scheme was abolished 25 June 2013 many retailers still seem to have and use the TV dealer notification form books.  These TV dealer notification form books, completed or not, were all supposed to have been securely destroyed by now but clearly they have not.  However, there is growing evidence that seems to indicate that a shadow/ghost notification scheme to TV Licensing is in operation.

Apparently, the 29+ million Postal Address File addresses stored in the Capita operated TV Licensing™ databases is insufficient and now, BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita, want to include additional fake and non-addresses in their already chronically unreliable address-bloated databases.  Which, we found out recently, stored details of a person who had been deceased for 11 years and which, knowing the depths and extent of  Capita’s chronic incompetence, undoubtedly stores details of countless other people long since deceased.

We also recall, Consumer Champion, Anna Tims, “congratulating” TV Licensing™ which had created 4 different fake address records in TV Licensing™ databases for 1 residential address purposely to entrap a person, a TV licence holder, into paying up alleged arrears for a TV licence.  “Canniest Profit Booster” she called it.  Given BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita’s propensities and track record that will be replicated Heaven knows how many times.

Another recent example of TV licence databases fake and non-address bloat was the bulk delivery of 130 TV Licensing™ threatograms to the office address of a holiday park.  Then take into account the innumerable instances of “correctly licensed” households who receive TV Licensing threatograms for year after year despite repeatedly informing BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita they are licensed. 

“Why don’t you check your database?” is the constant refrain but to no avail.  Perhaps the thumbnails go someway to explaining what must, after 16 years of Capita stewardship of TV licence fee administration and enforcement, amount to millions fake and non-address errors and duplications stored in Capita operated TV Licensing™ databases.

Fake and non-address errors and duplications which for BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita, yield a financial harvest of unexpected additional revenue by way of duplicated payments which people may not notice.  Yes, there’s money in them there fake and non-address errors and duplications and it is in the financial interests of the BBC and their TV Licensing™ contractor Capita to keep it quiet as the BBC tries to bale itself out financially as the full cost of taxpayer funded BBC TV licence fee concessions are transferred from the DWP to the BBC.  Some £800 million.  The BBC is going to need all those TV Licensing™ databases fake and non-address errors and duplications to keep solvent.

By now the notion that what BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita are doing conforms to “basic data harvesting” will have long since been dispelled.  It more than exceeds “basic data harvesting”.  To us it seems more like collecting sensitive personal information tarted up as data harvesting to corner people into buying TV licences they have no legal need of. 

Why?  Go back to the questionnaire. 

“To help establish whether a separate TV licence is needed please answer the following questions and return this email to us.“

Notice the switch about who makes the decision whether a TV licence is needed.  It is not the people unwise enough to complete and return the questionnaire, it is BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita.  Who will exploit the private information to their advantage by using it against the people who have supplied it?   BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita.

“ . . . . Once we receive this information we?ll (we’ll)be able to confirm the licensing requirements at the address . . . . “

“we’ll”?  Once they have confirmed “the licensing requirements at the address”  and it means buying a TV licence and people unwise enough to have completed the questionnaire disagree, what then?  It opens a window of opportunity for BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita to exploit private information to their advantage by using it against the people who have supplied it.

Currently, the TV licence databases are address based.  The BBC wants to change that to customer name databases.  Why?  There are more people than addresses so the potential take in TV licence fees is greater per name than per address.  The BBC wants people to have individual BBC accounts.  This can be seen in the insidious way iPlayer has been, bit by bit, restricted to one person per household by virtue of linking a TV licence number to one email address at one residential address and thereby throttling access to iPlayer to one person at a time.  Once BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita can link names to addresses and payment records it is, Bonanza!  Multiple TV licence fees per address and a means of entrapping and binding individuals into hoops of financial obligation into obtaining TV licences which by law they may not need. 

Yes, David Perry, QC, must be in raptures.  BBC TV Licensing™contractor Capita certainly seem to be.  More so.  We bet they can hardly believe their luck.

People can bring the collective raptures of Perry and BBC TV Licensing contractor Capita to an abrupt end.  How?  By simply asking themselves, “How I live: What business is it of BBC TV Licensing™ contractor Capita?”

None

The value of domestic cctv surveillance and handheld video camera can prove invaluable in gathering evidence of the serial abuses and misdemeanours perpetrated by employees of Capita Business Services under cover of the BBC TV Licensing™ contract. TV Licensing Watch advise anybody who has the misfortune to have face to face dealings with Capita BBC TV Licensing™ to make an audio-visual record of those dealings in their entirety covertly or overtly with cctv and handheld video cameras.

For people who have not exercised their right to remain silent, TV Licensing Watch advise anybody who has had the misfortune to have face to face dealings with Capita BBC TV Licensing™ and have received a summons as a consequence to contact a licensed law practitioner if: there is the slightest discrepancy between the actual situation regarding viewing habits and/or what actually happened during the interview compared with what has been written on the TVL178 Record of Interview self incrimination form.