Utility provider sharing personal data

Player_86

Hypothetical scenario:

• you are with a utility provider for several years and paying by direct debit and e-billing.
• the utility provider sends letters containing your personal data (name, address, date of birth, bank account details etc) to the wrong address, several dozen times, over a prolonged period of time, without telling you.
• the recipient of these letters eventually rings the utility provider and tells them the intended recipient doesn’t live here.
• the utility provider doesn’t inform you of this having occurred, but updates its internal systems, resulting in your direct debit being cancelled unbeknownst to you, and the utility provider trying to charge you penalties for late payment of your bill.
• utility provider is satisfied that your personal data has not been shared on the basis that the recipient of the letters received over the years confirms over the phone that he never opened them.

Any thoughts on how one might address this with the utility provider?

Thank you.

melekalikimaka

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058219472/utility-provider-sharing-personal-data

Id put money on it your bank details werent shared, maybe last few digits. your date of birth would not be on any letters, your address isnt really your personal data as such, nor is your name. You should have been notified however

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214789#Comment_118214789

 your address isnt really your personal data as such

especially when it is not even your correct address

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118221681#Comment_118221681

Not necessarily. The wrong billing address may have been used, but within the letter, it may have listed the premises address.

What is it that you want to address?

If it's the penalties for the cancelled DD, you just need to engage with them and get a complaint escalated.

If you want to make a privacy complaint to them, go for it, but I don't see how it will benefit you. If you want to make a complaint to the Data Protection Commission, go for it. Name, address, DoB, account details are indeed all personal data.

That said, I'm a little sceptical about the details provided here. Was it a 'wrong address', or was it a previously provided address that you never updated? How can you be in receipt of utilities services at an address that the utility provider doesn't have? Why would a utilities provider would be sending your DoB and bank details in a letter? It doesn't really stack up.