Good Morning, I liked your video interview on "What gets my goat": telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motoringvideo/9587196/Honest-John-what-gets-my-goat.html

At the risk of raising your blood pressure even further, you might be interested to know that BPA members can't quite look at every vehicle registration record in the DVLA database. There's is a "restricted access" system that forces access to some records to go through a special DVLA department, where the reasons for the request are properly assessed, and the data is only sold if the BPA member has a justifiable reason. As of 25 November 2008, there were just 23,750 vehicle records that have this "restricted access".

I got hold of this information via a two-year FOI battle a few years ago. The DVLA was very reluctant to admit that the system exists, or to allow ordinary people to use it. A final letter from them gives the data and another shows how reluctant they are to put a car registered to a medical researcher on the restricted access list after a colleague had been threatened by an animal rights group.