Bankruptcy

Dear Sir/madam

Hull City Council takes requests for information very seriously and it
concerned us to hear that there were a number of requests from the 'What
Do They Know' website which we had not received. A thorough
investigation of the matter was conducted which revealed that emails
generated from the 'What Do They Know' website do not conform to agreed
industry standards for acceptable email addresses and this they accept
on their website in a statement saying their emails may be rejected as
spam.

The 'What Do They Know' server generates email addresses randomly just
as spammers do so it is sometimes intercepted as junk mail. In the
protection software we use email is graded 0 - 100, and any grade above
19 is intercepted and interpreted as junk mail and is automatically
deleted. It is not feasible given the amount of spam we receive daily to
store and search for emails coming from the 'What do They Know' website.
The software we use is third party software and therefore we are not
privy to the rules and standards inherent in the software to prevent
spammers trying to circumvent those rules and standards. Spammers,
viruses and hackers use others email addresses to send their
executables, therefore no reputable secure system would 'Whitelist' any
domain server to allow all email it sends through, as this would open
the gate to virus, hackers etc.

We have raised the issue with the administrators of the 'What do They
Know' website in the hope of finding a resolution to the problem and
have also informed the Information Commissioners Office, but at this
stage you should be aware that emails from the website may not be
received by this Council. All requests are acknowledged with two days
of receipt therefore if you have not received an acknowledgement we
would suggest that you submit the request directly to us. There is no
need to supply any of your personal details to us (unless you are
requesting information about yourself) apart from an email address. Any
details you do supply will be treated in confidence. To ensure receipt
of your request this should be emailed directly to our generic mailbox
at [Hull City Council request email].

If you would still like us to provide a response to your request then
please re-submit your questions.

Information Governance Team
Hull City Council
Tel: 01482 300300

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