Wrightscale and Data Protection

Wrightscale and the new General Data Protection Regulation. 

GDPR came into effect on May 25^th. It applies to any organisation which sells goods and services to individuals living in the EU. You may ask why we aren’t bombarding you with emails on the topic.

The Wrightscale 16mm scale live steam Wren locomotive is one of our best-selling products

GDPR affects traders from all around the world; the new legislation has proved profitable to various advisers eg accountancy firms and other consultancies. They have hyped up the threat – a maximum fine of 20m euros or 4 % of annual turnover. In the USA alone the largest 500 companies have spent nearly $8 billion in making sure that they can continue to trade within the EU. Apparently, consultants were able to double their rates monthly as the deadline of May 25^th approached.

This  live steam Wren locomotive explains the nature of our business

Small companies like ours have been worried by the new legislation. It is hard to know where to turn for advice. The UK Government itself has been less than clear. A professional analyst said that advice from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office was ‘not easy to understand’. He was a pro so the average amateur is even less likely to understand what our own government has to say on the issue. No doubt there will have to be a case in court before everything is completely clear.

The upshot has been that organisations large and small have been emailing or writing to clients. My inbox is full of emails from companies, organisations and charities all begging me for permissions to keep sending their ‘updates’ – organisation-speak for advertising. Some offer inducements as well as heartfelt pleas. There is emotive language ‘We love you… don’t lose us for ever’ There is wit. A well-known snack food retailer offers ‘a pizza my heart.’ There are inducements such as £10 off the next order. Be afraid when they offer gifts. Anything you buy will be more than £10, so what seems like a concern for your privacy turns out to be just another marketing gimmick. For the most part, there’s no need to answer. This ‘marketing’ will probably continue anyway. If a site, or an e-tailer is sufficiently interesting, you will find your way back to them.

16mm Wrightscale Wren running on a garden railway. Rather than targeted advertising, we would rather you came to look at our products

We decided against pestering you. We feel that you our customers should be allowed to search for what you want. We have carefully reviewed our business practices which already respect your privacy and right to a clear inbox. Our mailings are in response to yours or to give you information that you specifically requested. Your email addresses appear without distinguishing marks in our ‘contacts’ list. You can request us to delete them. We made a conscious decision not to clutter customer’s inboxes with ‘newsflashes’.

By asking ‘regulars’ for consent, small businesses may even have made some of their mailings illegal. About two thirds of customers do not respond to ‘privacy policy’ emails. If people think ‘dull, unimportant or whoops! I hit the wrong button!’ can you blame them? Technically, all these failures to reply mean that this 66%  of all customers should be deleted from the typical e-tailer’s list. If they are not, then in theory the organisation is breaking the law. If the e-tailer had just kept quiet, all would have been well.

If you have hours to spare and like raised blood pressure, you can read through all the ‘re-subscribe’ emails. You may even start to feel sorry for the smaller e-tailers and publishers. Advice that these organisations receive is of varying quality.

There is a feeling that large well-funded companies will ignore the rules. To be more accurate, they can find accommodations with the new realities and find ways to suck us back on to their mailing lists. GDPR may give us more power to block unwanted communications, but this right is incomplete. ‘Service communications’ do not count as marketing, nor do mailings and phone messages about services if they can argue that the victim whoops, sorry, customer has a legitimate interest in such information. Thus although 25^th May has come and gone, recorded messages still tell us that we might be eligible for free home insulation. It is business as usual for some marketeers.

This is a genuine historic Wren locomotive at work on the Leighton Buzzard LIne. We are proud to offer history to our public. Photo copyright MD Wright

There is evidence that larger organisations are exploiting smaller ones. A certain Web platform, whose information harvesting tools are used to price, sell and place adverts has informed its users that data protection compliance is their responsibility. The Web platform can continue to use the data that has been harvested. In theory, the fines for the small blogger might be massive.

The key word is ‘might’. The one certain thing is that it has cost many people with a Web presence good money to avoid a conceivable prosecution. We have to remember that the massive fines for bad practice are potential rather than a certainty. At the very worst, a small company with a small turnover will be charged ‘in proportion’ ie enough to hurt but nothing like 20m euros.

We must not seem ungrateful. This large Web platform has enabled us to blog, conveniently both for you and for us. We can share with you the news from Malcolm’s work-bench and our historical research. It comes from us to you in a convenient way. We don’t carry paid advertising for other products. We are pleased that you are interested in what we write. We don’t hold data on our readers any more than we do about our customers.

Part of Wrightscale WD bogie kit made up. It is a faithful 16mm model of the bogies that were used in their thousands to carry food, water, ammunition and supplies to the British Army on the Western Front 1916-18

Although it is disappointing that telemarketing and spam have not disappeared, there are some good things about GDPR. One is that small organisations acting in good faith probably won’t suffer. Another is that it is (in theory) illegal to hold data without informing the customer about this hitherto clandestine data bank.

Fine 16mm models of WD wagons made by Henry Holdsworth. They run on Wrightscale WD bogies as seen above. Photo copyright Jim Hawkesworth

This aspect of the new legislation affects, for example, the data on which robots base insurance quotations or loan decisions. Someone who is considered ‘a bad risk’ for insurance purposes can at least discuss special circumstances with a human being. We have all heard stories about elderly relatives who keeps claiming on the insurance for home repairs.They may think that the repairs are ‘free’ but the insurance just reclaims the cash by quietly raising the premiums paid by direct debit. Loving family take her affairs under control and fix the roof or the intrusive tree roots so that the damage and thus the claims will cease, but no other insurer will take on the house. Scandalous premiums must continue to be paid, even though the problem is fixed. Now at least, loving family can discuss it with a human being and interest another insurer enough to quote a more reasonable sum.

Colonel Prosper Pechot. Thanks to him, 60cm/2' gauge became widely used.  We use the blog and our biography to make his name better known. Photo courtesy Raymond PECHOT

  Wrightscale tries to keep down its costs and so we haven’t paid out to consultants – yet. We feel that this is what our customers prefer. The companies with most to fear from GDPR legislation are the ones who take customer data for their own uses.. The Wrightscale presence on the internet tries to go the other way. Our website and blog exist to give you information, not the other way around.  GDPR at its best exists to foster this shift in power between people/customers and organisations.

Remember, if you wish us to remove your email address from your mailing list, please tell us. Have a nice day, folks.