Personal information in official email - best practice

I've just received an invitiation from my local council to switch to paperless billing.

The email contains:

My Title + Surname My Postcode and House Number My Account/Council Tax Reference Number My Account key for logging in on-line

A link to the their site and of course my email address.

Armed with that information I can login, change my email address, switch to paperless billing and see a summary of my details.

Seeing as Council tax is a key element in identity proof am I being paranoid that the council have not followed best practice, and if they haven't is there a good reference I can use if I point this out to them?

Reply to
AnthonyL
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If you log on and change the password you should be ok.

However what does the account allow you to do?

What are you worried about?

Reply to
Nick

An email print out is not going to be suitable as (part) proof of identity. Far too easy to forge.

You'd generally need a paper bill (which would be sent to your address) and a photo one like driver's licence.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

And is utterly useless to prove anything;

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Reply to
Huge

Presumably meaning they're really good at producing forged documents?

Reply to
Huge

Blimey! Never heard of them, but ISTM what they are doing is a bit dodgy to say the least.

I was very amused by the Trustpilot review page for ReplaceYourDocs. The third review (from someone called Stott Emerald) has been removed because it might breach Trustpilot guidelines. In their reply, Replaceyourdocs says "User claims nothing was done, the document was emailed to him on the 23rd January. User then became threatening and claimed he would have 400 friends post negative reviews on trustpilot if we did not refund. Screenshot can be provided of this email."

Now would that be a real screenshot or a Replaceyourdocs screenshot? ;-)

Reply to
Jeff Layman

The only additional information requested on signing in was my full name, though I don't know what would have happened if I had not. Otherwise no further information was needed to get in and change my email address and change to paperless billing.

Reply to
AnthonyL

Humph. The account key should have been sent under separate cover. I'd whinge about that.

Reply to
Tim Streater

True. It's about time we moved into the 20th century (let alone the 21st) and had proper ID cards.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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Reply to
Adrian Caspersz

Nonsense.

Reply to
Huge

En el artículo , Dave Plowman (News) escribió:

You've got one. Your passport. Why do you think we need yet more bureaucracy?

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

a passport is too big and bulky to carry in your wallet.

Reply to
charles

You are not required to have a passport (or a driver's licence). It's also a very bulky document to carry with you at all times.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Then we'll just stick with council bills, etc.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I do not know but we blind have the opposite problem. We can sign to get our nhs letters in an accessible format even plain text email, which is no more insecure than paper mail that can easily be opened but instead they want us to go to a web site from a link in their email and insert a password and then we get a pdf which is untagged for blind use or may even be just a picture of the text, completely missing the point about accessibility. I think in all things we should have the right to decide how secure we wish to be. In my experience, nothing in the world is truly secure so assuming you don't leave your personal details lying around or on a train, you should expect that its safe from all but criminals who, lets face it could be working for the companies we deal with. Indeed the often have just put in special instructions for power companies that forbid their humans from actually taking your debit or credit card over the phone disadvantaging lots of people who cannot read and repeat numbers fast enough or key them fast enough to get the automated system to work. For every advance is so called security, one finds they have screwed it for a group of users, arguably breaching equality law on reasonable adjustments. So no, I'm not that worried if council tax ebilling details are sent out in a paper letter.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

That should have said offgen the energy watchdog. Not even thought of anyone listening to audio details as a prompt for entering a number. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

En el artículo , charles escribió:

The UK is a civilised country where it's not a requirement to carry ID all the time. (Different story in my other adopted country).

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

I wouldn't have minded an ID card if a). it hadn't been compulsory, b). it wasn't so expensive, c). it wasn't a criminal offence not to carry it. As it is, for convenience only, I've just applied for my new, over-70, driving licence. I've no intention of driving, but given the difficulties at times with ID it seemed an easy way to go - and a bit cheaper than a passport!

Reply to
PeterC

Fairy nuff. But others have complained about existing ways to confirm your identity not being that reliable.

Also the bit about health tourism. Hospitals etc saying how difficult it is to check whether someone really is entitled to free health care. An identity card system with a decent database would make that easy.

I don't really care either way. But so many organisations both state and private already keep details of an individual, I can't really see why one central one is going to be such a bad thing.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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