Twitter users urged to trigger SARs against energy companies

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Categories: Big Data & AnalyticsDigital TransformationInnovation

On 8th August, Twitter user @pepelep48542643 created a thread that outlined different ways to ‘make a stand and hurt your energy supplier without getting into debt/damaging your credit rating’. This thread is in direct response to the UK energy crisis.

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With price caps on bills predicted to rise by more than £4,000 in the next eight months (Auxilione), the UK’s micro businesses, which employ fewer than 10 people each but a total of 4.2 million employees across the country, and around 45 million residential consumers are forecast to be thrown into potential energy poverty this winter.

Among Sir Pepe le Pew’s* advice was for customers to submit a Subject Access Request. For those new to the term, a Subject Access Request (SAR) is one of the most fundamental rights in data protection laws around the world. It means any person has the right to ask an organisation whether they are using or storing personal data and any other supplementary information (ICO).

Individuals can ask organisations for copies of their personal information, verbally or in writing. Third parties can also submit a request on behalf of another person. In most circumstances, organisations cannot charge a fee to deal with a request, and they must respond without delay and within one month of any request received.

According to Gartner, “most organizations are processing between 51 and 100 subject rights requests per month, with the processing of a single access request costing more than $1,500.” Additionally, organisations are experiencing a sharp rise in SARs, with more individual awareness around data and COVID-related redundancies cited as possible reasons behind the spike.

Whilst many energy companies will shrug off the effects of a tweet, this particular call to action has incited over 500 retweets and 3,000 engagements. Not to mention, it lives in a thread with over 9,700 retweets. And it’s specifically targeted at energy companies.

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Faced with the same challenges our clients and other organisations experience around fulfilling a SAR, GlobalLogic designed a data management platform that manages large volumes of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) from unstructured sources.

GlobalLogic’s new platform provides a simple, smarter and seamless end-to-end solution. Its flexibility and adaptability help ensure it continues to meet the ever-changing landscape of global data privacy legislation and is able to control and manage PII for the employee and consumer.

This also means that organisations would no longer have to work with multiple data rights management suppliers and technologies. Instead, you work with a single platform, provided by a single trusted supplier.

It’s not just a workflow tool or a redaction tool, it’s a streamlined, automated platform that provides a secure, scalable and self-serving solution that is fully auditable – future proofing your Data Protection Officer needs and requirements.

What’s more, GlobalLogic can help save you up to 78% of your Data Rights Management costs – or more, depending on the volumes.

Yes, this tweet might stop making the rounds. Alternatively, individuals might choose to act upon Sir Pepe Le Pew’s advice and cause “huge hassle” for energy companies across the board.

If you’ve experienced a rise in SARs, or want to introduce a future-proofed, end-to-end solution for your data rights management needs, reach out to the GlobalLogic team for a demo.

*to save any confusion, the much loved Warner Bros. Looney Tunes character has nothing to do with the tweets.

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