Email address for Road Tax transaction

[dergside]

I know that the Motor Tax website has been pushing people towards electronic correspondence for some time, but it has always been possible to complete a transaction without giving an email address. I'm taxing Mrs D's car at the moment and it now looks like it is obligatory.

Anyone know when that happened? I taxed a couple of cars at the beginning of March and I don't recall being obliged to provide an email address.

I work in IT, so I tend to be a bit conscious of privacy, data security, EU GDPR, etc. and prefer to not provide more Personally Identifiable Information to anyone than is absolutely necessary. They already have name and address information for mailing the disc, etc. I don't see anywhere to explicitly consent to providing it to them. Taxing online has been a great service, but I'll revert to going to the tax office, or doing it by post in the current situation, if necessary.

[kdevitt]

Someone@someone.com will be enough to get it through.

[bazz26]

Just setup a new email account on the likes of gmail or hotmail and use that. Nearly everyone has at least one generic gmail or hotmail account for this kind of stuff where you don't want their regular email address that might easily identify them used.

[dergside]

I think that if you provide an email address they will stop issuing paper based renewal notices, expiry of SORN's, etc. in the mail.

I know the planet might appreciate that but I have the attention span of a goldfish. I overcome that by having a system that basically means if there's a document in a little pile on the counter in the kitchen then I might do something about it. If there's no document, well, you can see how the rest of the process might suffer.....

[kdevitt]

I think that if you provide an email address they will stop issuing paper based renewal notices, expiry of SORN's, etc. in the mail.

I know the planet might appreciate that but I have the attention span of a goldfish. I overcome that by having a system that basically means if there's a document in a little pile on the counter in the kitchen then I might do something about it. If there's no document, well, you can see how the rest of the process might suffer.....

They don't. I still get the paper notifications and I've provided them with my email address since the portal went live.

[bazz26]

I think there is a box that has to be ticked if you want to accept future motor tax notifications electronically.

[rebel.ranter]

I have gotten all of my renewal notifications electronically for years.

[dergside]

I taxed a couple of cars at the beginning of March and I don't recall being obliged to provide an email address.

Apparently I must have provided an email address, as yesterday I got two email notices to renew for these cars, and text that included:

"This is your motor tax reminder. Please retain, as you will not receive a renewal notice in the post."

Looks like a change of policy in Motortax to me. EU GDPR issues there as far as I can see. I went ahead and taxed Mrs D's car online due to C-19 pressures, so just as well I didn't use donald.duck@disney.com or the next renewal of that would have gotten lost in the ether and never made the post.