East Coast Respond on Data Collection Concerns

I’ve now recieved a positive response from UK train operator East Coast in relation to the data collection and retention concerns I had after booking a journey with them recently.

The general gist of it is that the mandatory collection of marketing data like age, number of children, etc., were “not as specified”, and it is “being fixed” so that it’s no longer mandatory to enter these details just to change your account data, such as your email address, or opt-in/out status of marketing emails.

They don’t, however, consider the information collected as excessive, as long as it’s optional and you volunteered it in the first place.

But at least they have said they are fixing the inappropriate mandatory fields in their webforms.