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Data Protection Racket

I saw the letter and reply in last Saturday’s Telegraph regarding the way DVLA sells our details to car park owners and their lackeys. I want a bit more advice if you can please. Your advice is to sue DVLA for passing on our details for the purposes of a private matter rather than a criminal offence. My position is that I parked at a station car park managed by an enforcement agency. One of its attendants put a PFN (penalty fare notice) on my car. I sent the PFN to the address on it, along with a copy of the receipt for the ticket to park, which I had purchased that day about 15 minutes before they issued the PFN. They ignored it and put the matter in the hands of their solicitors who obtained my details from DVLA (they told me so in writing) and sent a solicitors letter to me advising me I should pay. I sent a copy of the correspondence I had earlier sent to the enforcement agency asking what evidence they intended to provide to prove that I had parked in contravention of the Parking Regulations. They have now written to advise that the “recent letter sent to yourself.......was a result of a clerical error. This has since been corrected and we wish to reassure you that our records have been changed and you will no longer be pursued with this matter”. Apart from criminal illiteracy, how should I go about suing DVLA for issuing the solicitors with my data in pursuit of a matter that was a clerical error? And is this going to cost me a lot of money? I am not too bothered about the time – its worth it, and its worth a few hundred quid but money is not in big supply. I would also like to find out from the Data Protection Registrar (or whatever they are called this week) whether even government agencies should take more care to only issue information to genuine enquiries.

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 even in cases like yours where they have made a mistake. 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.
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