THE SNP’s European election campaign has got off to a disastrous start after tens of thousands of personalised letters were sent to the wrong people.
The bungled mailshot was aimed at around 400,000 registered postal voters.
The party has now referred itself to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to see if there was a data breach.
Senior party figures blamed SNP HQ, which is run by Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell, for a mistake in the data given to mailing company Critiqom.
READ MORE: Holyrood chief calls for re-think of Scottish Parliament's voting system
Mr Murrell’s name appears on every letter as its official promoter.
The SNP later admitted there had been "a clerical error" in its office, and apologised to electors affected by the blunder.
The party also admitted it didn't know how many letters had been wrongly addressed.
"Wer're looking into it," a spokesman said.
However one source estimated more than half the leaflets were "probably" affected.
Social media users posted pictures of A4 letters in windowed envelopes which had arrived at their house with someone else’s name as the addressee.
READ MORE: Scotland does not want Brexit says Nicola Sturgeon at launch of SNP campaign
Asked in 2016 if she would ever sack her husband as party chief executive, Ms Sturgeon told The Sunday Herald: "If I thought it was merited."
Is this not a MASSIVE GDPR violation? Hearing that it’s country wide as well... https://t.co/n3VG8B17vj
— Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP🔶 (@agcolehamilton) May 9, 2019
The problem emerged on Thursday, the day Ms Sturgeon launched the SNP’s campaign for the May 23 poll.
The letters, addressed to individual voters, began “Dear-”, and then had the wrong name.
Scottish LibDem leader Willie Rennie received a letter calling him "Edna".
I will insist that @NicolaSturgeon addresses me as Edna in the @ScotParl pic.twitter.com/jF8ELJrBcd
— Willie Rennie (@willie_rennie) May 10, 2019
One party insider said there appeared to have been “spreadsheet” problems, with small errors rippling across thousands of names and addresses.
The source said younger voters would probably brush off the problem, but the party was worried that older voters - those most likely to vote - would be annoyed.
“The problem is losing that personal touch older voters like,” the person said.
The Scottish Tories claimed one woman in the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk seat received 30 SNP letters to her home – not one of them with her name on.
Hey @NicolaSturgeon, your letter to these folk arrived today at our address. If you tell me where they live I’ll pop it round. Thanks.#SNPshambles pic.twitter.com/ttrQWOQSbz
— Murdo Fraser (@murdo_fraser) May 9, 2019
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: “The SNP has become so incompetent it can’t even carry out a simple mailing exercise.
“No wonder people are losing their faith that the hapless nationalists can govern a country.
“No sooner has Nicola Sturgeon declared a climate emergency than she ensures hundreds of trees die in vain.
“This wasn’t just inconvenient and confusing for tens of thousands of householders.
“It’s a very serious data breach and one that could land the party in all kinds of trouble.
“The SNP should apologise immediately, and refer itself to the Information Commissioner.”
Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: "This is an embarrassing blunder from the SNP. No wonder our public services are in such a mess when they can't even post a letter properly.
"This incident may have resulted in individuals' personal data being passed on to strangers.
"The SNP should apologise to all those affected by this blunder."
READ MORE: Scotland does not want Brexit says Nicola Sturgeon at launch of SNP campaign
An SNP spokesperson said: "On Thursday, mail arrived with some electors that had the wrong addressee name on the letter.
“A clerical error has been identified in our office.
"We have been in touch with the ICO, but there is no ongoing issue with the integrity and security of data or any issue of identity theft.
"We wish to apologise to the electors affected.”
READ MORE: SNP to launch European election campaign
An ICO spokesperson said: “We have been made aware by the Scottish National Party of an incident relating to election materials and will be making enquiries.”
Critiqom said it expected the SNP to issue further details on the error later.
Did you receive a personalised letter from the SNP?
Get in touch if you were wrongly contacted with a personalised letter from the SNP.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel