I used to do that, just to illustrate the stupidity of it, but then got really p1ssed off replies from a load of the recipients 
I know half the people on that list. And I bet there are many email addresses which they would have preferred to not have leaked out into the wild.
But, hey, the govt machine is in full swing to rectify the situation:
Subject: Recall: Submit a GAR Service
From: Bucinskas Martynas <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2019 10:46:17 +0000
Bucinskas Martynas would like to recall the message, “Submit a GAR Service”.
Again, the entire email list is included. The clueless sender doesn’t know that most email recipients disregard a recall.
Somebody has just done a reply-all, with
Oooo – a nice list of pilots’ email addresses, That must be worth a few bob!
But this happens… a few years ago I got sent perhaps half of the RAF staff, on such a CC. Actually that list would not be a good idea to leak out.
Under the GDPR rules, they have to now confess the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office, or risk a hefty fine :-) (Although Government tends to exempt itself from regulations it imposes on others but finds bothersome).
Give the guy a break. He made a silly mistake, but that’s what it was; a mistake. No harm was intended.
I’m sure he’s sitting in his office now, having a really, really bad day. There’s no need for us to poke fun at him.
Mistakes happen.
You are right…
However this does illustrate how really awful screwups are possible. Presumably he is using some bulk mailer setup (I am sure he’s not emailing out of M$ Outlook and pressed the CC instead of BCC, which is what so many people have done ) and he didn’t test it first with a small sample of addresses of his mates. When we do a bulk mailing on EuroGA, it is tested with ~3 recipients first and checked that it reads right on various devices, before letting the script loose on the rest.
But maybe he is using Outlook or some such. A mailing script would not support such a mode. It would take a CSV file and email one at a time.
Given that probably half of all people unknowingly upload their whole Contacts book to FB etc, and some % of people who got that email have a trojan infected device which will send the whole lot to china, the result of this is that if someone used a dedicated email address for the Home Office, that will now get spammed.
And I bet you that the email addresses sit in the same database as the other GAR form details which you have configured…
What surprises me is that only 157 have signed up to the scheme so far. That is perhaps 10% of the UK PPLs who fly abroad? I guess it has received very little publicity.
Could it be the same person who sent this?
Sorry, IMHO there is no excuse for this level of incompetence. If it was a one-off thing, maybe I could forgive… but their standard-PR response of “we are committed to do the right thing yada yada and we have voluntarily reported it to the ICO” shows they don’t give a hoot. There’s nothing voluntary about it – by law, you must report!!
It hasn’t received much publicity, I don’t think. I only found out about it from EuroGA, and I intend to continue to use Carl’s onlineGAR as I bet the Home Office one won’t send the Isle of Man GAR forms.
alioth wrote:
I bet the Home Office one won’t send the Isle of Man GAR forms
I test it two weeks ago to France: I got a confirmation by phone that nothing was received on the other end
I bet any online form websites does cost 5m£ in HO terms
France doesn’t need GAR forms What did you actually do, and who said they didn’t get it?
Coming back from France to UK, same day as you were in L2K 
I sent one on that new website (instead of Email or GAROnline), user experience was great and I got a nice gov.uk email confirmation
Sent email to local UK Customs/BF to check if they got it, someone called me back 2h before flight: no GAR, I had to file a quick one by email using an excel template on my phone while eating my dessert, so now very convinced to use Email/GAROnline
