Optics must rid itself of lingering email luddites 

I find it somewhat ironic that the day after Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of email, died I had to phone an optical company to ask for a copy invoice and wondered if this could be sent by email.

Whereas this request was met without a problem (after giving my account number and invoice details), things turned ugly when I asked for all future invoices to be sent by email as well.

I was told that I must put that request in writing and the lady responded to my puzzlement that my phone request was insufficient by immediately citing the one thing certain to make my blood boil – ‘data protection’. She obviously thought adding that this was a serious security issue would assuage me!