Data Protection and DVLA

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DVLA and The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002
 
Recently I fell foul of a car park management company. This company uses number plate recognition technology to scan your car registration on entry and exit from a car park.  With this information they simply contact the DVLA who are seemingly happy to hand over your name and address.
 
This company makes the excess parking charge on the basis that you have breached a contract with them.  You are deemed to have accepted the terms of the contract simply by parking your car (in the Aldi supermarket car park).  I won't bore you here with the appropriateness of their signage.  My point is that this dispute is based on a civil law contractual dispute and yet the DVLA is still quite happy to hand over my personal data.
 
I have included below an extract from the DVLA guidance in this area.  I don't believe staying 107 minutes instead of 90 minutes in the Aldi supermarket car park should be regarded as "reasonable cause" for the DVLA to hand over my personal data to a private business.  The DVLA is being used as a cheap resource by companies who simply have to set up cameras and then use the DVLA database.
 
A brief spell using Google shows that this is a concern of many hundreds, if not thousands, of others. I hope you will lend your support stopping this abuse of the DVLA data, sorry I mean MY data held by the DVLA.
 

Currently, Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 allows the Agency to release information from its vehicle register to the police, to local authorities for the investigation of an offence or decriminalised parking contravention, and to anybody who demonstrates ‘reasonable cause’ to have the information made available to them. Regulations also allow for a fee to be charged to cover the cost of processing requests.

‘Reasonable cause’ is not defined in legislation but release is normally associated with road safety, events occurring as a direct consequence of the use of the vehicle, the enforcement of road traffic legislation and the collection of taxes. The Agency has to evaluate very carefully the reasons for the request as well as the way in which the information will be used before releasing the information.

Why is it important?

I think this concerns civil liberties and data protection.

The DVLA uses the law to demand personal information from individuals but then is willing to hand over that information to private companies for money. 

The DVLA web site states

"Currently, Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 allows the Agency to release information from its vehicle register to the police, to local authorities for the investigation of an offence or decriminalised parking contravention, and to anybody who demonstrates ‘reasonable cause’ to have the information made available to them. Regulations also allow for a fee to be charged to cover the cost of processing requests.

‘Reasonable cause’ is not defined in legislation but release is normally associated with road safety, events occurring as a direct consequence of the use of the vehicle, the enforcement of road traffic legislation and the collection of taxes. The Agency has to evaluate very carefully the reasons for the request as well as the way in which the information will be used before releasing the information."

I do not believe that the "reasonable cause" as used by the DVLA should extend to private parking management companies.

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