G4S ‘fails to reassure’ MRS over prisoner calls

Frost said that G4S’s response to her first letter had failed to give “sufficient information to reassure me that the practice in which you are engaged would not fall under the general definition of ‘sugging’” – selling under the guise of research.

The correspondence between MRS and G4S was prompted by an article published by the Daily Mail, which reported that prisoners at HMP Oakwood, as well as Drake Hall prison, were earning £20 a week conducting telephone surveys. However the description of the survey, as given by the Daily Mail, raised concerns that an element of sugging might be involved.

G4S has repeatedly denied that Oakwood prisoners are engaged in sugging. In response to Frost’s first letter, Jerry Petherick, G4S’s managing director for custodial and detention services, said prisoners are “not involved in any activity which might constitute sugging”.

“Rather,” Petherick said, “they conduct a consumer lifestyle survey – a series of simple questions about people’s spending choices across a range of areas (including utilities, insurance and pensions) on behalf of our commercial partner, a data collection specialist.”

However, Frost responded that: “So called ‘lifestyle surveys’ are labels often used to lead respondents into the mistaken belief that the survey is genuine market research. The respondent is unaware that his or her information is being used by a commercial third party to generate sales leads, or even being sold on to a further commercial third party to exploit.”

Petherick would not name G4S’s commercial partner, citing “commercial reasons”, although he did say that “at this time [the company] are [sic] not a member of your organisation”. He went on to state that the prison work scheme is operating with “a number of regulatory controls in place”. “All activity is undertaken in compliance with the Data Protection Act and with Ofcom regulation; and data collected is screened against the Telephony Preference Scheme Register [sic],” said Petherick.

Frost concluded: “Whilst we would obviously prefer that the public are protected by knowing that your telephone call handlers are properly trained, and subject to proper professional oversight, we would at least like to be reassured that the words ‘market research’, ‘research’, ‘survey’ or any other phrases which might mislead as to the purpose of the exercise, are not used in your scripts, that you are clearly identifying the company behind the commercial data collection exercise and that you are clearly explaining to respondents the commercial usage to which their data will be put.”

The full G4S letter is available online here. The MRS correspondence is here.