Does GDPR apply to parishioners who send an email to PC?

Question

A Parishioner's email was sent anonymously to councillors ready to discuss at a forthcoming meeting. When a councillor asked the clerk for name of parishioner, he was told. Is this breaking the GDPR code/law?

Answer 1

How can an email be sent anonymously?  The email address would be included in the message?  It is unclear fro your post if the Clerk received the email and has anonymised it under instruction from the parishioner or if the parishioner used an unidentifiable email address and left the email unsigned?

Some councils will have a policy that prevents anonymous correspondence being raised at meetings as there is no method of reply.

That said, I don't believe it is against GDPR as the parishioner sent an email in for a specific reason and clearly anticipates is generating action from the parish council.  I believe councillors have the right to know who is the correspondence is from.

Comments

The sender may have used an E mail address that gave no indication as to their real name  e.g. *Emails are not allowed* and asked to remain annymous but may have provided their real name and address within the body of the E Mail, or may have told a Cllr they were going to contact the Council and hinted at wwhat they would be sending.

Answer 2

The GDPR regulation may well have been breached here as an organisation must inform those (known as the Data subject) who provide their personal data how it will be processed (which includes sharing publically). The organisation must give the data subject the opportunity to consent to that being done or not.  Often, this is achieved by asking the data subject to confirm they have read a privacy notice and agree to be bound the data sharing articles in it.  We would need to know if the data subject was given a privacy notice or some other form of providing implied consent to sharing of their personal data  - perhaps inadvertantly.

Comments

I agree with Graeme_r, the provisions of Article 13 of the UK GDPR would apply.