My husband has serve a subject access rights notice on the halifax and today we have had a reply and it states that they can only give us the details they hold on computer, but when the mortgage was taken out it was with the Leeds and the halifax tell us that they did not use computers only paper so they do not have to show us those details. Is this correct.

-- christine singleton (singletons@fsmail.net), October 03, 2000

Answers

What a surprisng statement! To say that the Leeds Permanent was not using computers in 1995 is surely a joke.

I found the following on the internet at:

http://www.infact-res.co.uk/content/casestudies/halifaxaplc_m.htm

------------------------------------------ "The result of a merger of Halifax Building Society and the Leeds Permanent Building Society, the Halifax (Halifax plc) went public in July 1997, becoming the third largest bank in the UK"

"We want to deliver a long term customer relationship which is profitable to the company and beneficial to the customer," says Andy McLaughlin, head of the Halifaxs Customer Relationship Management team.

"When I had to battle the case for our project at executive director level, SAS Institute played a crucial part in making it possible for me to win the business case for the technology by helping me create an environment that delivered business benefit rather than just technological wow."

Essentially, the Halifaxs SAS software application is an executive information system that reduces large amounts of information to the basic facts. Using this system, the CRM team creates meaningful profiles of customers, so it can understand their current personal needs - the products they currently hold with the Halifax and other companies, their attitudes towards finance, their likes and their dislikes, and the kinds of products they might like to buy in the future.

"The application helps us understand the dynamics of our customer base," says McLaughlin. "By segmenting them we can offer our customers the most appropriate product and manage the process of looking after them more effectively." -------------------------------------------

I believe that this may confirm that at this point all the previous Leeds Permanent customers had been moved over to the Halifax's computer systems.

Interestingly enough it was Eversheds that acted for, or in connection with the transfer of the entire portfolio of Leeds Life following the merger of the Leeds Permanent and Halifax Building Societies.

I would suggest that you contact the Data Protection Commissioner regarding this matter.

-- Tony Hayter (Tony@Hayter.com), October 03, 2000.

Very Well spotted Tony Hayter !

-- Vic Harper (victorcharper@aol.com), October 03, 2000.

The new Data Protection Act covers paper based records as well but this part of the Act does not come into force until next year.

For the time being, I suggest your write back to the Data Protection Compliance Officer at Halifax with a copy of Tony Hater's posting. You might also want to send a letter to the Data Protection Registrar with copies of the correspondence between you and Halifax, I'm sure they'd be very interested.

Good luck

Pendle

-- pendle (pendle@amun-ra.demon.co.uk), October 04, 2000.