Local government bodies or councils in England and Wales have begun sending notices to citizens to confirm that their personal data is up to date in the voter register. This is a routine procedure that is carried out twice a year, but every year it causes more and more indignation and problems. The fact is that the site and the registry are not managed by government agencies, but by a private contractor - the commercial company Civica Election Services (CES). The compane copes with its duties quite well, but the problem is that the site runs on the HouseholdResponse.com domain. And this name looks more like the domain of a fraudulent site than a government service - especially since the latter use domains like .gov.uk.
This situation has caused problems before, but now, as ordinary citizens become more aware of cybersecurity issues, the problem has only worsened. According to Bleeping Computer, more and more British are taking notices from local councils for a fraudulent campaign and do not want to update their data in the registry, but instead write complaints to various authorities. Making the situation even more complicated is the fact that failure to provide data to the voter register is an administrative offense and theoretically threatens the offender with a fine of up to a thousand pounds sterling. In addition, the registry data can be used by credit bureaus, and the lack of up-to-date data can lead, for example, to the refusal of a mortgage loan.
The absurd of the situation is understood by the local councils themselves. Many of them directly write in their notifications that the HouseholdResponse.com domain looks really strange, but you still need to visit the site. And some offer citizens to go to the registry website using a link posted on the official website of the council itself. The effectiveness of this measure is difficult to assess. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts are calling the situation "scandalous" and outraged that a site that stores personal data of British voters does not use a trusted government domain.
