AEK Larnaca Away Tickets / GDPR - Update

Wednesday March 8, Email to Head Of Ticketing

Dear [redacted],

I hope you are well and am aware that you and your team will be flat out dealing with the AEK Larnaca ticket mistakes, I don’t envy that at all.

However, we too have been inundated with complaints from our members regarding their tickets for this fixture. All of our members who have contacted us have received tickets with the names and passport details of other supporters and obviously they are concerned that their personal information has been made available to other supporters too. This is a breach of GDPR so we have to take this matter very seriously. We have pointed them to the Club statement issued last night, but we do need to go further and must cover off the following and hope you can help:-

1: What processes were in place to protect individuals’ personal information?

2: Why did these processes fail?

3: What the Club intends to do about this specific issue.

4: What the Club intends to do to ensure this never happens again.

Our ISC representative has informed me that the chair of the ISC has written to the Club, but has had no sight of the correspondence.

We need to advise that our members, should they wish to do so, should consider if they wish to take up their issues with the Information Commissioners Office.

If you can get back to me ASAP with some answers to the points above I would greatly appreciate it and will happily share with our members to allay their ire.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Colborne.

Chair(Hammers United).

Hi [redacted],

I am surprised [redacted] has not responded directly as this is most definitely a ticketing issue and I’ve no doubt that everyone at the Club appreciates the serious nature of this matter.

As you will expect, Hammers United’s members continue to make contact on a daily basis expressing grave concerns at this apparent breach of GDPR and they are demanding an explanation as to what happened and why it happened. They also expect firm assurances that something like this will never happen again along with details of a robust process that will see tickets issued correctly and in a timely fashion.

This is an issue that is not going to go away and it needs to be dealt with quickly - the fans quite rightly expect answers and they want those answers now. As the largest independent West Ham supporters’ group, we need to tell them something ASAP.

Our next European fixture away will be played on April 13th and supporters are already making travel arrangements. They need to know they can do this safe in the knowledge there will not be a repeat of the events which marred the Larnaca fixture.

To this end Hammers United wish to extend its full support and will do everything possible to assist the Club in formulating and communicating a foolproof system for the distribution of tickets in a timely fashion. We are at your service.

In the meantime I respectfully ask that the Club gives this matter the most urgent attention and look I forward to a speedy reply.

Thanks and best regards,
Paul Colborne.
Chair - Hammers United.