The DVLA should be sued under the Data Protection Act

[Bookworm]

Ok, back to the original post and the cause of that thread.

I answered a few months back a post where someone was asking about his details having been passed on by the DVLA, advising a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office, as I firmly believed it had to be a Data Protection Act breach. Then someone else on here pointed out that the DVLA were actually permitted to do so, and when I checked out the DVLA site, I found the same paragraphs as are quoted above. To say that I was gobsmacked would be an understatement.

I find it incredible that the DVLA can hide behind a catch-all sentence as "reasonable cause" to give out details to all and sundry. People worry about the IR discs gone missing? IMO, this is a hundred times worse, and it happens every day.

There is something very wrong when the DVLA are allowed to make money out of passing on our details in such a manner, because it encourages lax behaviour. Does the asker have "reasonable cause" to ask? Wellllll, not sure, but there goes another fee if we say he has, so what the hell... There's targets to be met, you know... and at such a small fee, it needs a lot of them to be really profitable, so...

It is VERY scary. Someone with a grudge (and ex-spouse for example) and just enough craftiness can very easily pas themselves off as a "reasonable cause" asker, for instance pretending to be a private parking company, to track down the ex. See where I am going with this?

The solution? Well, I am not sure, but what I do know is that it is just plain wrong that a government agency should be allowed to give out information in civil disputes, full stop. We give out our data because we have to by law, we expect the same law to protect that data, not use it as a commodity. What next, our financial info just sold on to DCAs by the Tax Credit Office, simply because they say that we owe them money? Well, why not? What's the difference?

[battyboomboom]

s27 and 28 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 make it clear that the DVLA can sell data to "any person who can show to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that he has reasonable cause for wanting the particulars to be made available to him."

If you did sue them, I'm sure they would argue that in this case the 2002 Act takes precedence over the 1998 Data Protection Act. It would be an interesting one, and don't know who would win, however I think there is a case for saying that the Data Protection Act is surely more constitutional than the 02 Act - I feel people forget about the later act and think that the DVLA is selling data off without being allowed to in law, ultimately the govt are responsible for this bloody mess.

On the subject of perky and his cronies, I would like to say to the mods and others who have been on here for a while, and have been dealing with the banks, that while the banks may take your money, they do not however commit several criminal offences including harrasment, fraud etc. Also, what would happen if pro-bank charge persons made appearances, showing lost cases and then gloated, lied and caused troubled? I assume you'd welcome them in, and say, "Oh sorry you are right, we should stop trying to get our money back."? I thought so...

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Originally Posted by battyboomboom

s27 and 28 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 make it clear that the DVLA can sell data to "any person who can show to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that he has reasonable cause for wanting the particulars to be made available to him."

If you did sue them, I'm sure they would argue that in this case the 2002 Act takes precedence over the 1998 Data Protection Act. It would be an interesting one, and don't know who would win, however I think there is a case for saying that the Data Protection Act is surely more constitutional than the 02 Act - I feel people forget about the later act and think that the DVLA is selling data off without being allowed to in law, ultimately the govt are responsible for this bloody mess.

battyboomboom,
Take a look at this thread:
Data Protection Complaints – Template Letters
Here I put forward an argument as to why I feel that there is an error in the DVLA and PPCs thinking that an alleged breach of a purported contract for parking off the roads/street of the UK is reasonable cause for a PPC wanting to know and the DVLA selling personal data held by the DVLA for the purposes related to vehicle use on the roads/streets of the UK.

[interesting]

Originally Posted by battyboomboom

On the subject of perky and his cronies, I would like to say to the mods and others who have been on here for a while, and have been dealing with the banks, that while the banks may take your money, they do not however commit several criminal offences including harrasment, fraud etc. Also, what would happen if pro-bank charge persons made appearances, showing lost cases and then gloated, lied and caused troubled? I assume you'd welcome them in, and say, "Oh sorry you are right, we should stop trying to get our money back."? I thought so...

How has perky comittee any criminal offences, if so, why havent you reported him to the police and submitted crime details ... I think thats a bit strong to imply a certain person has comitted offences in a forum like this where the innocent are 100% innocent until the other paty has proved otherwise ... and to which you have no evidence of.

The bank issue, I have never been charged anything by my bank in the last 20+ yrs or so .. If I have the money I buy it, if I dont then I will wait until I do ... I would never write a chq without money bring there so I cant relate to the bank charges for bounced chqs/unauthorised overdeafts bit ... sorry, but if you didnt go overdrawn then no bank charges would apply (I am sure when I opened my account it says they will charge xx for a bounced chq, xx for going overdran and I signed to accept the conditions .. but still ) ... This is TOTALLY off topic but 'PePiPoo battyboom' brought it up and it needed responded to ... so that question is answered, I am sure there are 000's of people who have had bank charges and feel they are unfair ... but I cant comment as I never had any - I am sure you have a good and noble cause to which the courts will decide on, very right so.. until then nothing more to be said.

[MARTIN3030]

The comments made recently have been reported.
As such it needs to be said that posting adverse remarks that cannot be properly be substantiated apply equally to all- regardless of whether aimed at members,individuals or companies.Simply it cannot be allowed.
Battyboomboom it appears there are insinuations here that are questionable.If you cannot provide evidence to support the allegations then I suggest you retract the comments.
Otherwise they may have to be done for you.

[battyboomboom]

http://www.combinedparkingsolutions..../ebrochure.pdf P12 FYI, it is in no was whatsoever an offence to remove the "Parking Charge" - to me this looks like an offence under s40 (d) of the AJA 1970, and quite possibly the new Fraud Act 2006,

Although I didn't say it was Perky who was solely responsible for the criminal offences (I did say "his cronies" refering to the many others and possibly worse offenders, and the plural in banks), it is clear he has done so himself.

[Bookworm]

Originally Posted by battyboomboom

On the subject of perky and his cronies, I would like to say to the mods and others who have been on here for a while, and have been dealing with the banks, that while the banks may take your money, they do not however commit several criminal offences including harrasment, fraud etc. (1) Also, what would happen if pro-bank charge persons made appearances, showing lost cases and then gloated, lied and caused troubled? I assume you'd welcome them in, and say, "Oh sorry you are right, we should stop trying to get our money back."? I thought so... (2)

(1) I think you'll find the Whistleblower programme and others would disagree with that sentence, as do many, many threads in the Debt forum, indeed, we have templates specifically for harassment cases.

(2) We do get people like that on a regular basis, yes, and unless insults really start flying, we (and by that, I mean the moderating team) tend to let them get on with it, simply because we find that the regular users are not usually backwards in jumping on them and giving back as good as they got. Indeed, we have a forum especially for bank workers, pro or against, where we invite them to post. Interestingly enough, I find that some of the very arguments now being used by the OFT's barristers in the OFT v banks test case were originally often raised in some of those very active threads.

With debate, and arguments, new ideas fly, take shape, some get discarded, some will grow. Nothing wrong with that. So I don't know what point you were trying to make with your "I thought so... ", but I think you'll find that on CAG at least, we prefer discussion to monologues.

[battyboomboom]

Originally Posted by Bernie_the_Bolt

battyboomboom,
Take a look at this thread:
Data Protection Complaints – Template Letters
Here I put forward an argument as to why I feel that there is an error in the DVLA and PPCs thinking that an alleged breach of a purported contract for parking off the roads/street of the UK is reasonable cause for a PPC wanting to know and the DVLA selling personal data held by the DVLA for the purposes related to vehicle use on the roads/streets of the UK.

Bernie, sorry, read both threads and decided to reply here, yes, those arguments are good, PPCs certainly shouldn't be able to get hold of RK details. I just wanted to bring to your attention the 2002 Act, as people seem to forget about it, I know what your're saying - they are in breach of Data Protection Act if they have the details without reasonable cause, while the DVLA breach the 02 Act - just wanted to make sure you mentioned it in the letters

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Originally Posted by battyboomboom

s27 and 28 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 make it clear that the DVLA can sell data to "any person who can show to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that he has reasonable cause for wanting the particulars to be made available to him."

If you did sue them, I'm sure they would argue that in this case the 2002 Act takes precedence over the 1998 Data Protection Act. It would be an interesting one, and don't know who would win, however I think there is a case for saying that the Data Protection Act is surely more constitutional than the 02 Act - I feel people forget about the later act and think that the DVLA is selling data off without being allowed to in law, ultimately the govt are responsible for this bloody mess.

On the subject of perky and his cronies, I would like to say to the mods and others who have been on here for a while, and have been dealing with the banks, that while the banks may take your money, they do not however commit several criminal offences including harrasment, fraud etc. Also, what would happen if pro-bank charge persons made appearances, showing lost cases and then gloated, lied and caused troubled? I assume you'd welcome them in, and say, "Oh sorry you are right, we should stop trying to get our money back."? I thought so...

S28 does not apply as it has this qualification:

if the information does not identify any person or contain anything enabling any person to be identified.

As far as S27 is concerned it depends on what "reasonable cause" is held to be. As I have said elsewhere I think that in the case of PPCs it is highly questionable as to whether their "cause" is "reasonable". However, I have also said that I don't think that this will be resolved without a judicial review.

[interesting]

Originally Posted by battyboomboom

http://www.combinedparkingsolutions..../ebrochure.pdf P12 FYI, it is in no was whatsoever an offence to remove the "Parking Charge" - to me this looks like an offence under s40 (d) of the AJA 1970, and quite possibly the new Fraud Act 2006,

Although I didn't say it was Perky who was solely responsible for the criminal offences (I did say "his cronies" refering to the many others and possibly worse offenders, and the plural in banks), it is clear he has done so himself.

I thought it was an offence to remove any article that does not belong to you.
If an item is placed on your vehicle (parking charge/flyer etc...) for someone else to remove it without the permission of (1) the person who placed it there and/or (2) the person who owns or is in charge of the vehicle then I am sure this is illegal and therefore technically an 'offence'.

[Bookworm]

I don't think so, interesting. Indeed, if I remember rightly (this is very old stuff for me), the person placing the flyer etc on your windscreen is technically guilty of trespass, as they placed it on your property without your permission.

Think about it: If someone were to throw something in your garden, would you be committing an offence if you were to remove it and put it outside instead?

I had this many years ago, when some of my guys decided to leaflet the local s/market by placing them on windshields and we got into all kind of trouble from it. As I say, this is a long time ago, so I would have to double-check, but I'm pretty sure that that was what we were told at the time.

[WebFerret]

Originally Posted by Bookworm

Ok, back to the original post and the cause of that thread.

I answered a few months back a post where someone was asking about his details having been passed on by the DVLA, advising a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office, as I firmly believed it had to be a Data Protection Act breach. Then someone else on here pointed out that the DVLA were actually permitted to do so, and when I checked out the DVLA site, I found the same paragraphs as are quoted above. To say that I was gobsmacked would be an understatement.

I find it incredible that the DVLA can hide behind a catch-all sentence as "reasonable cause" to give out details to all and sundry. People worry about the IR discs gone missing? IMO, this is a hundred times worse, and it happens every day.

There is something very wrong when the DVLA are allowed to make money out of passing on our details in such a manner, because it encourages lax behaviour. Does the asker have "reasonable cause" to ask? Wellllll, not sure, but there goes another fee if we say he has, so what the hell... There's targets to be met, you know... and at such a small fee, it needs a lot of them to be really profitable, so...

It is VERY scary.

I just found this 'gem' published in the Mail on Sunday newspaper that simply confirms the DVLA's apparent insistance in maximizing their 'revenue stream' at the expence of protecting ones private information from being accessed by unscrupulous individuals:


Death knell sounds for Private Land Parking Firms with landmark ruling
Now political pressure must be applied to the DVLA to stop ALL private firms accessing the DVLA data base.

Judge quashes £300 parking fine...because it set out to ‘frighten and intimidate’ driver
By MARTIN DELGADO
Mail on Sunday
22nd March 2008

Car park operators could be forced to stop threatening motorists with huge penalty charges after a landmark court ruling.

In a decision that will be welcomed by many aggrieved drivers, a judge has ruled that the demands for hundreds of pounds in penalties which a parking company sent to one woman driver were illegal because they were too high.

The court was told they were intended to "frighten or intimidate" her rather than compensate the firm for any lost income.
The case is expected to have far-reaching implications for private parking firms.

Labour MP Alan Meale, who has campaigned on behalf of motorists, said: "This ruling gives hope that people who have had money taken from them wrongly by parking companies may be able to recover it." And the woman's solicitor, Martin Lee, said: "In future, companies that charge these sorts of sums will have them struck out unless they can prove that they are a proper account of any financial loss."

The courts have shown that unfairly high bank charges are a penalty charge and therefore unjustifiable. The same principle applies here. In a ground-breaking decision, the judge quashed a series of £100 demands sent to Victoria Hetherington-Jakeman, who had allegedly left her car at a shopping centre for more than the permitted two hours.

She was sued by Excel Parking Services, which is run by a man once acquitted of demanding money with menaces from the owners of clamped cars and who is allowed electronic access to the Government's database of 38million motorists – despite being temporarily barred last year following scores of complaints about its behaviour.

Ms Hetherington-Jakeman, 60, was sued for failing to pay three £60 parking tickets which she did not even know she had been given.
Her visits to the Portland Retail Park near her home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, took place between September and November 2006.
But no tickets were left on the windscreen of her Mercedes and she heard nothing from Excel until the following January when she was sent a bill for £300, followed by letters from bailiffs threatening to confiscate her property unless she paid up.

Excel had used a fixed camera to record her numberplate as she entered and left the site. It then passed the details to the DVLA, which sent back an email with her name and address.

Mr Lee told Mansfield County Court that the levy of £100 per offence was an "unlawful penalty clause" intended to "frighten or intimidate" and therefore unenforceable. This argument was accepted by District Judge Wall, who ruled that the fines did not have to be paid.

Last night, Ms Hetherington-Jakeman, who is head of quality control at a printing firm, said she was relieved her 14-month battle was over.
"Excel's behaviour has been absolutely disgraceful throughout. When I tried to contact them – and the only way to do that was on a 50p-a-minute premium-rate phone line – I got no response". They said they couldn't discuss the matter. "They couldn't even get the most basic details right. First, they said my car was black, then silver. It's white". They claimed the initial £60 parking tickets hadn't arrived because of a hold-up at the Royal Mail, though the Post Office said that wasn't true.
"It's been very stressful but at least we have got the judgment we wanted."

Excel, which manages a number of hospital, retail and station car parks, is run from an office in Sheffield by Simon Renshaw-Smith, 41, who is also director of a wheel-clamping firm called Captain Clampit Ltd.
In 1993 he was accused at Sheffield magistrates' court of demanding £145 with menaces from two drivers whose cars he had immobilised. Asked last night about the case, Mr Renshaw-Smith said: "The accusations against me were dropped. I was acquitted."

Last July, Excel was finally removed from the "approved" list of organisations allowed electronic access to the DVLA's database.
It followed complaints from around the country and the formation of a 100-strong action group in Mansfield made up entirely of motorists who claimed they had been unfairly treated by Excel. The move meant that Excel was forced to apply for personal data by post on a case-by-case basis.

Yet the ban was lifted only three months later. A DVLA spokesman said inspectors visited the firm and decided it was using the data "appropriately" . !!!!!!!!!!!!!

MP Mr Meale said he would demand an explanation of the decision from Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly. Martin Bingley, a spokesman for the Mansfield action group, said: "Excel has an appalling reputation for failing to respond to appeals and for insisting they are right and the customer wrong."

Excel, which has now lost its contract to run the Portland car park, said it was "disappointed&quo t; by the court ruling in Ms Hetherington-Jakeman's favour and was considering an appeal.

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I am in receipt of a letter, dated 04Feb2008, from Jim Fitzpatrick (a Transport Minister) - it states:

"New measures for companies requesting information from DVLA manually were introduced on 1 November 2006, following the review announced by my predecessor, Dr Ladyman".
"The use of company headed paper has been replaced by the introduction of two new forms - V888/2 and V888/3. All applications must be supported with a business resume that must include information on the company's business practices and details of why they want the information and how it will be used. Car park enforcement companies also have to provide evidence that there is a parking charge scheme in operation and that they are acting on the instruction of the landowner. All forms contain a note that reminds applicants that it is a criminal offence under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act to falsely obtain personal information".

"Companies that request and receive data via a secure electronic link do so under strict contractual terms and must first complete a 6-month probationary period making manual requests, during which time their behaviour in the use of the information is monitored. The level and nature of any complaint is taken into account before an electronic link is granted. Before a link is established, the DVLA confirms that a company is a member of an Accredited Trade Association (ATA) relevant to that industry".

"To become a member of an ATA, a company must comply with the ATA's Code of Practice (COP) which governs the conduct and business practices of members. Failure to abide by the ATA's Code could result in a company's membership of that ATA being cancelled, resulting in the forfeiting of their entitlement to request and receive DVLA data electroniclly".

"DVLA's Internal Audit teams are resposible for visiting external data users and ensuring that information is requested only where appropriate and is used and stored in accordance with their agreement with DVLA and the Data Protection Act. They have a rolling programme of audits, with provision for targeting those who generate a disproportionate number of complaints".

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You can all make your own minds up here as to what is 'really' going on!

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Template letters, updated to reference the above case are here if anyone wishes to use them:
Data Protection Complaints – Template Letters