192com
Online directory service 192.com is encouraging journalists to join its bid to keep the UK edited electoral register open as an official data source.

As part of a consultation closing next week, on 23 February, the government is collecting views on how the public would be affected by changes to, or the abolition of, the Edited Register.

The document contains the name, address of any UK voter who has not opted out of the Edited Register - also widely known as the public electoral roll - and it can be purchased by anyone, for any purpose. The full register has more limited access - for electoral purposes, credit checks and crime prevention.

192.com, which uses the edited register data for a electoral roll search section of its site, is to make a submission to the Ministry of Justice, laying out why it thinks the roll should stay open.

"To take the most official source offline is moving back 20 years, let alone 10," a spokesperson from 192.com told Journalism.co.uk. "Part of the argument is that there's other sources of information nowadays, like social networking, but you can't rely on them for checking facts: you do need that official data set."

192.com encourages journalists to make their own submissions to the consultation: "I don't think the Ministry of Justice is aware of how important it is to reporting," 192.com's spokesperson added. 

Murray Dick, lecturer in online journalism at Brunel University, believes it's vital for maintaining standards in journalism that it remains open access

"Journalists use the public electoral roll for many day-to-day tasks, from getting in touch with people involved in news events, to verifying that whistleblowers and providers of user-generated content are who they say they are," he told Journalism.co.uk.

"If we lose this official, reliable public directory, the consequences for journalism and wider democracy would be stark. Firstly, where it is not possible for journalists to verify basic facts about people in a timely way, this will inevitably lead to more mistakes, and more factual inaccuracy in our news - it will encourage churnalism.

"Secondly, the government risks creating a black market in personal information, where journalists are forced down every conceivable avenue towards obtaining contact details for people in the news.

"Thirdly, uptake in social networks in this country is far from universal, so many people would by default be disenfranchised from the increasingly desk-bound news production process.

Dick encourages journalists to submit their own view to Kirsten O'Connell at the Ministry of Justice: editedregister [at] justice.gsi.gov.uk.

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