Mark Davison, Callcredit’s technology development director, said: “The Electoral Roll is the cornerstone of identity verification and an essential element of the credit granting process. Around 13 per cent of the information on the Electoral Roll changes each year so it is important we give businesses access to the most accurate, up-to-date information available as quickly as possible.
“At Callcredit, we handle submissions from the UK’s 400+ councils electronically and use sophisticated data matching techniques to ensure errors and omissions can be easily identified and rectified."
Meanwhile, interim analysis of data from well over 90 per cent of the councils in the UK has highlighted another significant increase in opt-outs from the edited Electoral Roll.
Pre-ticking of opt-outs by local authorities on electoral roll forms has continued, resulting in an overall opt out rate of 32.25 per cent across the UK, an increase of 4.73 per cent on the previous year.
“We have seen approximately 2.1 million more people opt out across the UK in this autumn’s canvass,” added Davison. “This means that in total almost 14.5 million individuals are now excluded from the edited Electoral Roll.
“Pre-ticking of opt-outs by councils is a worrying trend not only for the direct marketing industry but for consumers as well,” he continued. ”Opted out people might find it more difficult to order goods by mail order, telephone or online as the edited Electoral Rol list widely used for ID verification on customer not present purchases, which don’t involve credit.”
