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Why can parking enforcement companies access my private data from the DVLA?
Like many of your readers my car was logged as overstaying a 2-hour limit in a B&Q car park. The parking company were given my personal details by the DVLA in order to track me down. The company concerned (about whom I know nothing or whether or not they are trustworthy) now have some quite useful information kindly supplied to them by the DVLA.
They now know if I enter one of their 'controlled car parks' that I'm not at home, they know where I live and hence how far from home I am (and therefore how long it will take to get home) and they also know when I leave the car park to go home. They can supply B&Q with names and addresses of its customers, when and how often they visit (and even if they are in the store now), how long they stay and what car they drive.
My course of action is to never to go to the B&Q store ever again and to note if their company is controlling any other car park, and to either not enter or to cover the number plates before entry. In my view the DVLA has breached my right to privacy by selling my data to a third party for financial gain, something it is allowed to do it would appear. The use of ANPR by the police is one thing but this is now being put to more sinister use.
They now know if I enter one of their 'controlled car parks' that I'm not at home, they know where I live and hence how far from home I am (and therefore how long it will take to get home) and they also know when I leave the car park to go home. They can supply B&Q with names and addresses of its customers, when and how often they visit (and even if they are in the store now), how long they stay and what car they drive.
My course of action is to never to go to the B&Q store ever again and to note if their company is controlling any other car park, and to either not enter or to cover the number plates before entry. In my view the DVLA has breached my right to privacy by selling my data to a third party for financial gain, something it is allowed to do it would appear. The use of ANPR by the police is one thing but this is now being put to more sinister use.
Asked on 4 June 2011 by JC, via email
Answered by
Honest John
Guess what? There is legislation about to be passed by Parliament called The Protection of Freedoms Bill that has a clause in it that will allow these very same pariahs to pursue the registered keeper of any vehicle for any penalty they may choose to impose using the same Data Protected information they already have access to. How about that for a particularly nasty licence to print money? (Under current law they cannot pursue the registered keeper for the name of the driver of the car when it committed the 'offence'.) Get onto your MP right now to and order him to oppose it.
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