Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2008/10/02/dvla_data_sharing/

DVLA: A licence to bill

Selling your data to... well, anyone

By Jane Fae

Posted in Legal, 2nd October 2008 11:42 GMT

Why worry about the government losing your data, when for a small fee they’ll cheerfully hand it over to criminals and big business anyway?

The question of when, how and to whom the DVLA ought to pass out your personal data is one that has surfaced at regular intervals, ever since the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 required the Agency to release information to anybody who demonstrates "reasonable cause".

The law does not provide further definition, but the DVLA has tended to release information in response to issues around road safety, the enforcement of road traffic legislation and the collection of taxes. In addition, they have been releasing data to a variety of agencies responsible for enforcing private parking restrictions.

The issue resurfaced last week, when a 24-year-old motorist received a demand from car park operators Parking Eye for £80 for overstaying the two-hour car parking limit at Lymm Services on the M6 in Cheshire. Her crime? Rather than drive whilst tired, she took a (too long) break in the near-empty car park just before 1am one morning.

Cue a BBC feature setting out concerns, followed by rebuttals from the DVLA and Department for Transport to the effect that they are only following the law, not making money from the scheme, and doing their best to weed out individuals who abuse their service.

The service is straightforward. For a flat fee of £2.50 (and reasonable cause) any individual can obtain details of the owner and their address for a given registration number. For £5, they receive additional details. For £3,000, large-scale users can be linked to the DVLA database and download details (still at £2.50 a throw) in the privacy of their own office.

The DVLA is adamant that this scheme does not make money - the charge is merely there to cover admin costs. However, as requests for details have almost doubled in the last five years to 1.64 million in 2007/8, this claim does not quite stack up – especially if online access is becoming more common. Either the service was under-priced when first launched, or the admin fee ought to have come down with economies of scale.

The DVLA also points out that it has banned companies that have abused the scheme: 4 have been temporarily suspended in the last 18 months.

Somewhere in the background is the slosh of firm hand-washing by the Office of the Information Commissioner. A spokesperson for their Office said: "This is primarily a matter for DVLA … If there is appropriate evidence that DVLA has provided vehicle keepers’ details without good cause, we will take the issue up with them, as we have done in the past."

In other words, "our hands are tied".

However, Edmund King, President of the Automobile Association is more outspoken. He said:

The entire framework of how we police this area needs to be looked at again.

Some of those providing parking enforcement facilities used to be wheelclampers on private land. When the Government tightened up on their activities by carrying out criminal checks, many set up businesses that relied on cameras and official looking documentation to remove money from anyone who failed to stick to the strict letter of parking regulations. There are no checks on these operators and motorists have no right of appeal.

King said motorists were often left confused over the status of the notices they get from car park operators.

Many of the "fines" that they issue are designed to look like fixed penalty notices. PCN (NW) are a typical example.

Individuals caught out in this way must take the time and expense of going to court to argue their innocence. Many pay up simply to put an end to the stress – not to mention the risk of falling foul of the law on a simple technicality.

Quite apart from the damage to individuals, over-tough parking restrictions can damage town centres, pushing trade to the outskirts, and putting off shoppers.

It may be that the time has come to say that the data should no longer be available.

The fear that this approach to parking regulation can attract criminals and less scrupulous operators is not new.

A new twist was added to operators playing fast and loose with our driver database by the revelation that although the DVLA is forbidden from giving details of UK drivers to foreign enforcement agencies, some European police authorities have found a simple way round this rule. They pay a UK operator to put in a request for the information to the DVLA. The UK operator then forwards details of the offence to the named individual and, if he decides to pay up, collects a commission from the issuing authority.

In theory, at least, no DVLA-derived data is sent abroad, and the DVLA is happy with this arrangement because it is based on "reasonable cause". An interesting twist to this practice is that anyone intending not to pay a foreign fine should ignore such letters entirely: Their DVLA data cannot legally be sent abroad, but the details of any communication with the UK operator – even a call to claim innocence – almost certainly can.

In response to complaints, the Department for Transport tightened up rules for access back in 2006, and claims that complaints have since fallen.

However, given our increasing wariness of data being released without our express consent – it seems possible that as a nation we are no longer quite so happy with this wholesale distribution of our motoring data. ®