Agency asking to open letters to landlord and end them pictures

m0bov

You've got photo's of someone else's council letters on your phone?

user1977

m0bov said:

You've got photo's of someone else's council letters on your phone?

What's wrong with that, if they've given their consent (via their agent)?

freesha

m0bov said:

You've got photo's of someone else's council letters on your phone?

Did you read the thread? They ASKED for pictures to be taken and sent. Plus, who says they will keep the pictures? I would assume they'll be deleted now

Mimi123456

m0bov said:

You've got photo's of someone else's council letters on your phone?

The agency who are managing the property on behalf of the landlord asked for it. I offered to post the unopened letters to their office but they asked to open them and send pictures. 

I’m not planning to keep the pictures. And offered to send the originals in post still if they require them.

Could you please clarify what you wanted to say?

doodling

Hi,

m0bov said:

You've got photo's of someone else's council letters on your phone?

Why not?

If you want your correspondence to be private then ensuring it is correctly addressed is absolutely essential.  Once correctly delivered to the address on the envelope then those at that address are under very few obligations with respect to the letter or the information contained within.

Obviously there is an obligation not to use the contents to commit fraud (just as there is an obligation not to commit fraud in general) and in some limited circumstances there may be an obligation to keep the contents private.  If you are part of government and therefore subject to the Human Rights Act or a business and therefore subject to GDPR, then there may be further obligations on you, but these have limited applicability to a domestic address.  If the letter has value in excess of the cost of the paper on which it is written / printed (e.g. it is actually cash, or bearer bonds or some other financial instrument) then you are probably obliged to keep it in case the sender wants to retrieve it.

Arguably taking a picture of the letter contravenes the council's copyright (even with the permission of the addressee), but it may fall under fair use, only the council can enforce their copyright and I can't imagine they would for a letter relating to council tax.