“I think you’ve misinterpreted the point of the data protection legislation.”

Such was someone’s response when I explained the reason I’d used BCC when emailing several friends and family members about a forthcoming family event.

Underlying that comment is the understanding that data protection legislation, such as the GDPR — see The Relaunch Of The Digital Education Newsletter — applies only to organisations. Well, perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn’t, but in my opinion data protection should be your default position, not something you do if you think you have to, or if you’re worried about being found out.

If you’re not convinced by this, consider the following.

First, there is no guarantee that the people you send your email to are going to be the only ones who will see it. For example, several people responded to my email by asking if they could forward the details to another friend who might want to attend. I said “Yes”, and so they forwarded my email — and the only email addresses that third party saw were mine and that of the mutual friend.

Surely that is exactly how it should be? I’ve found myself in the situation where someone sent an email to over 20 people, with all their email addresses visible, and then receiving an email from one of the recipients announcing: “Fantastic! I now have a brand new audience.”

Er, no thanks. I’d prefer to be asked to give you permission to send me your random thoughts, jokes, political diatribes and so on, rather than finding a load of spam in my inbox. Even if it’s not a legal requirement, it’s just good manners and a bit of consideration for other people.

Spam, by the way, may be defined as unwanted email, the equivalent of printed junk mail that comes through the front door. One of the people I know kept sending emails about petitions to sign, often several times a week. I politely asked her to stop, but she kept on doing it. In the end I set up a filter to automatically send her emails to the Spam box. A bit draconian, possibly, but I didn’t want to be bombarded with her political campaigns, but neither did I wish to risk a falling out. Automatically sending them to Spam seemed like a good compromise.

Second, many women in particular don’t feel comfortable knowing that men they don’t even know suddenly have their email addresses. This isn’t me being sexist, by the way. I’ve been told by several female family members that this is the case, and I’d be extremely surprised if they were the only ones who felt that way.

Bottom line: People don’t usually want random and unknown others to know their phone numbers or physical addresses, and we don’t need to check the legislation to see if we should respect their wishes. Why should email addresses be any different?