A complaint about YMCA Training a New Deal prime contractor keeping New Deal participants’ personal details longer than necessary then forwarding them on without consent to a third party statistics company who tracks surveys.
Complaint:
I have recently received a letter from YMCA Training asking me to complete a survey then return it to a freepost address. At first this seemed a fair task, they really care about participants feedback even though they mistreat us while we are on the course and realising we are unemployed also included a freepost envelope as a way of consideration so we don’t have to buy a stamp.
I read through the survey/questionnaire and all seems easy to fill in.
Stick it back in to the envelope to complete another time. Wait… Macclesfield? Does YMCA Training have a place in Macclesfield? I later check to find out that they do NOT have a place in Macclesfield and only the survey company has, and it is their registered office/headquarters!
After more thinking I realise that it has been many months since I finished my course so why does YMCA Training still keep my details on file?
I do not recall signing any agreement giving them the consent to pass my details on to other businesses. Jobcentre Plus gave YMCA Training my details and when I signed up to the course I never gave permission for them to abuse my confidential information. After further curiosity made me read the survey again, I noticed the code under the address matched up to that on the survey. I thought it was supposed to be anonymous?
Commentary:
The New Deal Scandal network and other sites are aware of this data breach, some of the sites concerned are as follows:
send the survey form with no information on it along with a note stating that you did not give permission for your details to be passed to third parties and that ymca training are in breach of the fio and that you did not give the job centre to pass your details to ymca either therefore you are not completing the enclosed form also write on the envelope junk mail returns department
allan johnstone
1 Nov 09 at 7:53 pm