What is 'address protection' in Denmark and does it stop you getting junk mail?
Danish data protection rules allow you to partially conceal your address, but what do you do if you want to stop receiving junk mail and ads from supermarkets?
Opening your mail box outside your Danish apartment or house to be greeted by a cascade of gratisaviser or “free newspapers” is an experience shared by many who have lived in the country.
These free papers mostly consist of reklamer or adverts from supermarkets, which send out weekly leaflets detailing the special offers they are currently running. Free local newspapers can also be delivered to mailboxes.
While these special offer leaflets can provide useful tips if you want to save on your shopping, they are also available online and you might prefer to protect the environment by not getting them delivered. So how do you go about this?
Adressebeskyttelse
“Protected address” or adressebeskyttelse means to request that the Central Personal Registry (CPR in short) does not share your contact information with private persons.
This means your address won’t appear on things like krak.dk and other sites where you can look up contact information for individual private people, like the old-fashioned phone book.
It also means that private businesses can’t share your information or retrieve it from the CPR register, unless this is related to debt collection.
You can register for address protection via the borger.dk platform. It is usually valid for a year after which you must renew it.
‘Reklamer nej tak’
Although address protection means your address will no longer be shared with postal service PostNord by the CPR register, you still need to actively request you will not receive the free papers and special offer leaflets.
These are not delivered to specific addresses, but put through all mailboxes unless instructed not to.
To refuse ads and free newspapers by mail, you must register for Nej tak til reklamer, literally “No thanks to ads”. This is done by filling in a form on the website fk.dk, owned by the private company FK Distribution.
READ ALSO: Six useful products I discovered in Denmark
You can choose to say “no thanks” to either the ads and the newspapers (Nej tak til reklamer og gratisaviser) or just the ad leaflets (Nej tak til reklamer).
You will then be sent a sticker which you affix to you mail box and – just like that – the junk mail should stop.
If you get a mail box you can order a replacement sticker. If you move, you must re-register.
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Opening your mail box outside your Danish apartment or house to be greeted by a cascade of gratisaviser or “free newspapers” is an experience shared by many who have lived in the country.
These free papers mostly consist of reklamer or adverts from supermarkets, which send out weekly leaflets detailing the special offers they are currently running. Free local newspapers can also be delivered to mailboxes.
While these special offer leaflets can provide useful tips if you want to save on your shopping, they are also available online and you might prefer to protect the environment by not getting them delivered. So how do you go about this?
Adressebeskyttelse
“Protected address” or adressebeskyttelse means to request that the Central Personal Registry (CPR in short) does not share your contact information with private persons.
This means your address won’t appear on things like krak.dk and other sites where you can look up contact information for individual private people, like the old-fashioned phone book.
It also means that private businesses can’t share your information or retrieve it from the CPR register, unless this is related to debt collection.
You can register for address protection via the borger.dk platform. It is usually valid for a year after which you must renew it.
‘Reklamer nej tak’
Although address protection means your address will no longer be shared with postal service PostNord by the CPR register, you still need to actively request you will not receive the free papers and special offer leaflets.
These are not delivered to specific addresses, but put through all mailboxes unless instructed not to.
To refuse ads and free newspapers by mail, you must register for Nej tak til reklamer, literally “No thanks to ads”. This is done by filling in a form on the website fk.dk, owned by the private company FK Distribution.
READ ALSO: Six useful products I discovered in Denmark
You can choose to say “no thanks” to either the ads and the newspapers (Nej tak til reklamer og gratisaviser) or just the ad leaflets (Nej tak til reklamer).
You will then be sent a sticker which you affix to you mail box and – just like that – the junk mail should stop.
If you get a mail box you can order a replacement sticker. If you move, you must re-register.
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