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Data protection racket

In your reply to M.S. of Retford regarding Penalty Charge Notices (May 16) you raise an extremely interesting question. Are you implying that the DVLA is breaking the law by supplying a third party with personal information relating to a civil offence? How else is the myriad of private car parking facilities, which operate under a quasi contract system (such as Supermarkets) to obtain car owners details other than from the DVLA?

Asked on 4 July 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
In the booklet that accompanies a vehicle V5, the DVLA claims a number of exemptions to the Data Protection Act that effectively make the Data Protection Act totally ineffective. Because the case described involved the registered keeper of a car being pursued for a contractual matter between someone else and the landowner then I think it could be argued that the Act had been breached in that the wrong personal data had been used and the wrong person was being pursued for a dubious penalty. And anyway I'd like to blast a hole through the wall of these operators who have turned parking penalties into a business by imposing huge financial penalties for very petty reasons in order to accumulate vast wealth at the expense of motorists in general. Maybe the answer is to allow them to continue, but to compel them to pay £1,000 compensation to anyone they mistakenly pursue. A grudging apology is not enough.
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