A while back I received two pieces of direct mail addressed to two different people at my company.

Here’s the thing. Neither of these people work, or have ever worked, at my company.

The envelope at the top is addressed to my ex-husband. He has his own career, as an attorney; he never worked for my company, not as a board member, an employee, nor as a sub-contractor. Also, he hasn’t lived at this, my home address, since 2008, more than 10 years ago.

You might chalk this up to an honest mistake. It was a household match based on address. But even so, the information they’re using is apparently very old.

Which brings us to the second piece of mail.

Also addressed to my company, also delivered to my home address. Once again, I know the person who it is addressed to. He’s in the email industry and we’ve served on industry boards together. But again, he’s never been an officer, employee, nor a subcontractor to my company.

If anyone knows who does or does not work for my company, wouldn’t it be LinkedIn? Both of these people have LinkedIn profiles – neither of them mentions working for my company in them.

I have so many questions… like:

• How much did LinkedIn pay for this incorrect data?
• Who sold them this incorrect data?
• Will these errors live on? Am I destined to receive mail like this for years to come?
• How much money will the source of this incorrect data make off of it this year? Next year? In future years?
• Who can I contact to try to correct this incorrect data?

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires that individuals be able to view the data companies have on them. It also includes the right to be forgotten, meaning that the individual can ask the data holder to delete the data held on them.

Would I be able to correct the data about who works for my company? Or would my ex-husband and my industry friend have to get involved to have their names removed from my company record? Does GDPR even apply to corporate data?

Oh, and I don’t live in the EU, so all this is moot. Although one of these people does reside in Canada – does that mean that Canadian privacy laws would apply? Like GDPR, Canadian privacy laws are stricter than federal privacy laws we have here in the United States (with the possible exception of the healthcare and financial services industries).

Moral of the story: be sure you have a high level of confidence in the data you are using. Otherwise you may be wasting money.