BBC - Thinking outside the box

Was reading up on the Wall Street Protests over at BBC when I noticed an online element I haven't seen before! How exciting!

At the bottom of the coverage, the BBC had included a little 'crowd sourcing' addition -

If you are in New York and willing to be interviewed by the BBC, please fill in the form below.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
Read the terms and conditions

(Required) Name (Required) Your E-mail address (Required) Town & Country (Required) Your telephone number

(Required) Comments

If you are happy to be contacted by a BBC journalist please leave a telephone number that we can contact you on. In some cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location, unless you state otherwise. Your contact details will never be published. When sending us pictures, video or eyewitness accounts at no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. Please ensure you have read the terms and conditions.

On first thoughts, I believed this was a fantastic idea. Those who were reading up on events they had witnessed were provided with the opportunity to become involved. However, having this option at the bottom of the page sets up readers for a similar experience to 'impulse buying' - caught up in the adrenaline and excitement of the event and its coverage, they may release details on a whim without properly considering the ramifications.

This also raises a secondary issue - how long can the BBC journalists retain these personal contact details? If a person gives their name, address and phone number concerning a single story, is the journalist then allowed to contact them in the future concerning other events?

Furthermore, where do all these contact details go? Are they stored in an 'online filing cabinet' or a printed database? In the Terms and Conditions, the BBC provided quite a general response -

"We will keep your information confidential and generally we will only use your information within the BBC. However, we sometimes use third parties to provide services on our behalf, for example independent producers who make programmes for us."

Hmmm... the more I think about it, the more questions I have.