The Great Declaration Hoax

When you read TVL's copious letters, they ask legally unlicensed people to tell them that they don't need a Licence. Why is that? What does it do for them?

For TVL, this is all a numbers game. It's all about the data. Your data. What it wants is lots of nice demographic categories in its database so it can use its IT to decide what to do (to you) next. To be fair, it does tell you as much, with its euphemistically cheery: "we may make a quick visit to check". Check what? Check I didn't lie to you? How rude is that? What's the point of me going to the trouble of declaring my lack of love for the Licence if you don't believe me?

Of course, the whole thing doesn't make sense. If all it took was the completion of an online "declaration", then Evaders would have worked that out. In reality, it is not the end, merely the beginning.

The other thing they want is for citizens to have made an effort to do something about their Licence-free status. Once they have done one thing about it, they are likely to be more susceptible when BBC/TVL asks for some other whim of theirs to be satisified. (This is basic Scam psychology).

So is there a benefit to filling in the declaration? Not really. The letters may stop temporarily ... or they may not. Either way, we'd recommend NOT completing the declaration as a matter of principle. You don't have to, so why would you?

As for them offering to stop their letters that they shouldn't be sending in the first place, that's just a pitiful piece of petty coercion - and why would you give in to that?