Fire brigade to share vulnerable customer data with Thames

London Fire Brigade has agreed to share high-risk customer data with Thames Water.

The data sharing agreement has been agreed in principle and is due to start in February, involving around 3,000 customers per month being added to Thames’ priority services register (PSR).

The aim is for the partnership to then extend into energy.

Speaking at Utility Week’s Consumer Vulnerability & Debt Conference last week, Thames’ lead on vulnerability Peter Cotton explained that the partnership was part of wider changes to the way the company registers people for the PSR.

In September Thames started registering customers under “substantial public interest”, allowing third parties like relatives, carers and charities to add someone on their behalf.

Cotton said Thames had always collaborated closely with the fire brigade but the need for a customer’s explicit consent to sign up to the register had always stood in the way of data-sharing.

The move to substantial public interest removed this barrier, Cotton said. “The fire brigade sees the benefit of sharing high risk customer data with us, their privacy statement supports this. When they do their home safety visits they will be able to remind people of their privacy statement and that their data will be shared.”

Cotton said follow-up communications to these customers would be co-branded.

As of the end of September, Thames had c84,000 customers signed up to its PSR but aims to have 410,000 by 2025.

Cotton said the new legal basis for the PSR had opened up opportunities to work more closely with other stakeholders, including councils.

He said: “We share data with local authorities during supply interruptions under the civil contingencies act. But because of that the data can’t be held afterwards. If you share data under substantial public interest there is a chance to share data in advance, proactively, so that when an incident occurs you can quickly enact that information.”