5

My real name seems to be very common in the US. I am UK based.

I quite often get private emails not intended for me to my personal gmail account. They're not spam or phishing attempts. These have included a draft divorce settlement, a police report, sea cadet timetables, bill invoices, a job offer, to name but a few. They're not all for the same person either.

This evening I received some US person's "Trustee's Final Report filed by the Chapter 13 Trustee" from their bankruptcy lawyer. I have not read it. The law firm checks out on Google.

The legal blurb at the bottom of the email says I must notify the sender if I received it in error. Must I? Am I risking a headache if I follow the command; or should I delete the email and pretend it never happened? I'm in the UK which still falls under GDPR rules; do I have obligations under that?

Improve this question
2
  • 2
    Watching this question because I'm very interested in the outcome - I have had my firstnamelastname@gmail.com since Gmail first started, and pretty much 90% of the mail I get is for other "me's". I currently ignore it all and bin it, but I get some ... "juicy" stuff on a regular basis (most recently a confidential internal investigation in a UK political party about a politicians conduct for example), but I stopped notifying senders back around 2006 because the volume is too high and too few senders cared.
    – user28517
    Aug 15, 2020 at 5:39
  • @Greendrake: In particular, this answer as the UK is a Common Law country.
    – MSalters
    Aug 18, 2020 at 15:12

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

No.

Email disclaimers and other footers presently have no legal authority in the United Kingdom. You have no obligation to notify the sender under GDPR or the Data Protection Act 2018.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.