Fine mess

I was very interested to read your reply "Tied up in Notts" regarding the release of personal info by the DVLA. Look on the website www.dvla.gov.uk/foi/relinfo.aspx and you will see that the DVLA can more or less do what it wants. There is a long list of organisations that can obtain our personal info by electronic link (seemingly without control) and I know of one company (not listed) that freely advertises that it has on line access to DVLA records and I know for a fact that it will use its access to obtain DVLA info for other companies. I am appalled that information that I am required to supply by law can be so freely distributed to almost anyone who wants it, and I'm sure that millions of others share my views. I thought the Information Commissioner was going to do something about it, but obviously not

Asked on 4 July 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
The ruling these people take advantage of applies to individual cases. What in fact the DVLA is doing is opening its records for mass access to these charlatans so they can rip people off with outrageous 'penalties' for overstaying parking by a matter of a few minutes that any court would find 'unreasonable' if challenged. Furthermore, they are obtaining court orders for payment by these people without giving them any chance of a fair hearing. And in the case illustrated in the paper they had done this against the keeper of the car without asking him who was driving at the time. Even a speeding Notice of Prosecution first asks the registered keeper who was driving the car at the time. What they are doing is a wholesale abuse of the Data Protection Act and that's why I want to see what they are doing challenged in court. What really disturbs me is that fining motorists for virtually anything has been turned into an industry in the UK. In relatively undeveloped, but wholly more pleasant countries like Thailand, people are employed to help drivers double-park (brakes off) without blocking other drivers in. What is the matter with Britain nowadays? Why do we put up constant moneygrabbing aggression against us?
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