Sports club keeps using my address

[TeddySunflowers]

Help! There's a sport club near my house, they have a building in an field nearby and I guess my house is the closest to it.

They keep using my address for all their deliveries and pick ups to the point now where I'm getting delivery people knocking on my door every morning sometimes twice a day and it's becoming really invasive and stressful because it's constantly disturbing my day, quite often they come early and wake me up, or hammer on the door while I'm in a meeting, and when I explain that I'm not the sports club and they've used my address without my permission, they argue with me as if I'm wrong! Then insist on showing me the order with my address on it as if that'll somehow convince me I'm not standing in my own home. It never used to be this bad and I used to try and be helpful when I first moved in but after accepting a parcel for them they turned up and we're immensely rude and I decided screw that I've just done them a favour for no reason. So I don't accept parcels, I don't even redirect the drivers any more in hope that it would deter the club from using my address but they still do it.

I know it's not the fault of the delivery person but I am slowly losing my patience with it. We've told the club to stop I've also contacted the delivery company to tell them to stop but it makes no difference. I don't know what else to do 😫 hellpp!

I can imagine this is really irritating, and invasive. I don't know what the answer is. Instructing a solicitor? Keeping the parcels might get you into trouble.

If you wanted to waste some of your own money, you could always mess with their minds and place some orders yourself - to the name of their club at your own address, of course. Random stuff: annoying noisy children's toys that won't shut up, musical birthday cards (ditto), 'personal items' from 'adult retailers', manure from gardening supply companies, Cheeky Girls/Jedward CDs, My Little Pony DVDs etc.

That would make for some interesting experiences when they open them - preferably when several of them are present and then they're all accusing the others of ordering the stuff!

To take Zoopla and Royal Mail as examples, your argument is that every address in the UK is personal data and they are holding these addresses on the basis of legitimate interests. That means, according to you, you are the data subject for any property you happen to own. You therefore, under GDPR, have the right to have the data deleted. Give that a try and see how far you get. Ask the ICO if you have the right to demand that Zoopla or Royal Mail delete your address. You will find that you don't because it isn't personal data.

The ICO extract you reproduce does not say that an address on its own is personal data. It says that it is an identifier, i.e. something that may allow someone else to identify to whom the data relates. Note that it is classed alongside someone's name and identification numbers. Your name on its own is not personal data. If other data is attached to it, that is personal data. Similarly, an address on its own is not personal data unless there is other information attached to it.

Neither Royal Mail nor Zoopla are listing someone's personal residential address as their main place of business though, are they?

So the club is using it as an identifier for itself (not just deliveries, but also generally on it's website)

Or - take them in and charge a tenner a parcel for their release.

😂

Posted too soon. We got one from Evri (Hermes - they have a new name, but guarantee the same cr@p service) that was just a blurry grey square - no idea what or where it was.

I hadn't even thought of any legal implications of this - but you are absolutely right!

This could have repercussions for OP.

Yes - I vaguely remember that one.

I wonder what happened?

How long has this been going on, @TeddySunflowers ? How many parcels per day/week were you taking in, for how long, and how long since you have been trying to stop?

oK, I admit it - I’m invested, I want to know the outcome.

There's a rule @prh47bridge :

Mumsnet + "GDPR" = Certainty of misinformation and misunderstanding

I've never seen a thread where GDPR gets mentioned not include someone claiming to be concerned about data protection get it completely wrong. It's one of those topics that get people confused between how it actually works and how they think it should work.

The obvious answer is to refuse all parcels that are not addressed to you (or someone living in your house) by name.
However, some deliveries nowadays just leave the parcel, ring the doorbell and run off;
Sometimes they wait just long enough to take a pic and leave;
Therefore my first comment is easier said than done.
I think it helps to know whether you are expecting a parcel for yourself or not.
Have a 'ring' doorbell, so you can see if it is a parcel or not, before opening the door.
If its just left on the doorstep, can you just leave it there, or place it by the kerb? Is this allowable?

Marking place as am glued to this. Just… speechless… the cheek of ‘em!

I’d keep any parcels for a month. Just say you can’t get it at the mo/ not answer the door. They must be thick- they could just get them delivered to the home of someone at the club.

They must be thick- they could just get them delivered to the home of someone at the club.

I don't think it's that they haven't thought of that, but they are just so egocentric and entitled that they see it as either having to answer the door and take in each and every parcel themselves and then find somewhere to store it in their own home, or alternatively, they can just pick them all up in one batch at their own convenience on the way to the club.

It's a special kind of arrogance that causes them to just treat OP, her time and her home as a free commodity that only exists for their benefit.

Catspyjamas17 · 28/06/2023 10:18

Firstly I'd write a formal letter to the club president advising them they have 14 days to change the delivery arrangements, giving a date. If the deliveries don't stop then you will return all parcels to sender from then on.

I'd say 24 hours and threaten them with a solicitor, too.

I'd be tempted to take some in, then dump them on the club's field at night.

I would put a sign up saying anything addressed to the sports club, even with this address will be refused without exception. DO NOT ring the bell, please delivery directly to the sports club.

I'd get a ring doorbell so you can quickly establish your deliveries without confrontation.

If deliveries are made to you regardless have you got a space you can leave them? I would just forget about them.

You have to inconvenience people who won't listen to reason. This is the only way to make changes to entitled behaviour.

@DogInATent
Mumsnet + "GDPR" = Certainty of misinformation and misunderstanding

That's so true😂😂

Also true for lots of other things - the list would be endless

And photograph them in the field as proof of "delivery".

Yes - and it'd be a terrible shame if they got soaking wet first, wouldn't it?

The right to deletion isn't absolute. An organisation can refuse if they have a good reason to keep the data. The Royal Mail PAF is such an example of a good reason.

I can't demand that my GP deletes my medical records for the same reason. Nor can I demand that my alma mater deletes my degree results.

The sports club has no good reason to keep the OP's address. That's what the GDPR breach is, storing the personal data without a good reason.

I quite agree. Particularly when people talk as if the right to erasure (deletion) is absolute when it's actually not.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib2

I did not say that the right to deletion is absolute.

You cannot demand that your GP deletes your medical records because there are specific exemptions around medical records. Your medical records are clearly special category data, but the right to delete does not extend to records processed for the provision of health or social care.

An organisation that relies on legitimate interests (which is what you appear to be calling "good reason") has to show that it has an overriding legitimate interest to refuse a request to delete. That goes way beyond "good reason". In most circumstances, a request to delete will trump the organisation's legitimate interest.

Zoopla cannot demonstrate an overriding legitimate interest in processing your personal data. However, they can refuse to delete your address because it isn't your personal data. It is an identifier which, if attached to other data, may allow you to be identified.

All the sports club is doing is exposing the fact that OP's address exists. That doesn't tell anyone anything about her. Yes, someone could look that address up in the Land Registry and find out who owns the property (which isn't necessarily the OP), but they can do that anyway regardless of whether the club has the address on their website. Unless the club attaches some other data that tells us more about OP, they are not publishing personal data.

And on that note, I will stop offering free legal advice on GDPR - something I understand in full having since advising people on data protection law has been part of my job since the first Data Protection Act in 1984.

Yes, someone could look that address up in the Land Registry and find out who owns the property (which isn't necessarily the OP), but they can do that anyway regardless of whether the club has the address on their website.

I don't know why Land Registry will hand over my name to someone who is willing to pay £3 to know who owns my home. It strikes me as deeply wrong. It's going to be the case for a lot of people that the building owner is the only occupant. I don't want randomers knowing where I live, I opted out of the public version of the Electoral Roll for a reason.

advising people on data protection law has been part of my job since the first Data Protection Act in 1984

My job is to try to protect the data that an organisation stores by protecting the computer systems that hold it. Related, but not the same.

Or somebody a dog peed on them.