Delivering the annual canvass - England

How can I collect email addresses and phone numbers?

You can collect email addresses and phone numbers directly from householders and electors, and you may be able to access them through inspecting local records.

You should look for opportunities to collect email addresses and phone numbers from canvass communications and other electoral correspondence throughout the year, such as voter registration forms and absent vote applications. 

You should capture as many email addresses and phone numbers as possible during the canvass alongside your other actions when processing canvass responses.

Whenever you collect email addresses and phone numbers from electors, you should ensure that it is clear to them that the provision of these is optional, and you should set out how you will process and use the information in your privacy statement. 

Can I collect email addresses and phone numbers from other local records?

You are legally entitled to inspect and make copies of local records such as Council Tax and customer service records, for the purposes of your registration duties.1
 
Relevant councils are expressly permitted to disclose information contained in local records to enable you to ascertain the names and addresses of people who are not registered but who are entitled to be registered.2 2 We have produced further guidance on the records you can inspect to identify new electors, including what you can use the information for, and advice on whether data sharing agreements are needed between the council and the ERO.
 
However, you are not automatically entitled to access and use any additional contact information contained in local records other than names and addresses. To access and use additional contact information, such as email addresses and phone numbers from local records you will require:

• a data sharing agreement to be in place between the council and the ERO, and
• the council to have informed individuals about the potential sharing of such information through their privacy notice

You will therefore need to engage with relevant council departments, holding constructive conversations with them and your data protection officer, to gain support for your approach to using e-communications. This could be tied in with your wider conversations about accessing local data for the purposes of your registration duties such as local data matching.
 
You should work with council departments and the data protection officer to develop data sharing agreements and to identify privacy notices which will need to be updated, so that when contact details such as email addresses and phone numbers are collected, the necessary consent is given for these details to be disclosed to the ERO. 

Our data protection guidance for EROs and ROs provides further information on data protection considerations.  

What if the council uses a customer records index?

Some councils have adopted a customer records or citizen index, to keep customer records in one central database. Such records are collated from a range of customer contact information and are likely to be up to date and accurate.

As the data in such databases is collated from sources across the council it is likely that data sharing agreements and privacy notices will already be in place for maintaining their customer records index which may only need minor changes to allow for the disclosure of additional contact details to the ERO. You should contact your DPO to understand what you may need to do locally.

Checking the accuracy of the information you collect

In order to reduce the number of emails or text messages that go undelivered due to errors in phone numbers or email addresses, you should carry out quality checks on the contact information you have collected. You could export the data into a spreadsheet to assist with this, or see if your EMS system can produce reports which could help to highlight inaccuracies in your data.

You should check for obvious errors such as domain names in emails being misspelt, incorrect use of punctuation or spaces in email addresses, and phone numbers with missing digits. You could then cross reference scanned images or paper applications to check and correct any contact details that contain errors. 

Ensuring that the contact details you hold are up to date and accurate will increase the number of messages delivered correctly and will reduce the administrative burden of dealing with email bounce backs when processing. For more information on managing bounce backs, please see responses to Route 1 e-communications.