DVLA makes £25 million selling your personal details

The DVLA is making a fortune by selling your personal details. And to add insult to injury, it is selling them onto companies so that they can send you parking fines.

The Daily Mail revealed that in the past five years, the organisation has passed on the details of 8.7 million people. The amount it made from the practice has mushroomed from £2.9 million in 2010-2011 to £6 million in 2013-2014. This year it has made £4.3 million so far, and is expected to make £7.3 million in all - taking the total over five years to £24.7 million.

The organisation holds details of every driver in the UK, and as part of its charter must sell details at £2.50 each when requested to do so by parking companies.

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Why?

The reason its income from this source is growing so fast owes much to a change in the law in 2012 which meant that private companies could no longer clamp motorists who were parked on private land. It means the companies issue tickets instead, and use details from the DVLA in order to pursue people and persuade them to pay up.

There are concerns that our personal data is being used in order to help companies target us - and make money for the government at the same time. In its defence the DVLA said that the £2.50 fee simply covers the cost of passing on the information - so isn't a money-spinner.

It also says that it limits the companies that it is willing to sell your information to. In order to get access, the enforcer has to be a member of an accredited trade association and have an appeals service. One condition of being an accredited association means it has to have a code of practice. Companies have therefore tended to join the Approved Operator Scheme run by the British Parking Association.

Is this fair?

The problem is that while the BPA has taken action against members that break its code of conduct - and suspends frequent offenders - there are still members whose activities cause a great deal of distress for motorists.
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Edmund King, AA President, said: "We are pleased that after decades of clamper extortion their practices have largely been consigned to history. However, private parking enforcement remains unregulated and is a free-for-all when even firms signed up to a code of practice breach their own rules.

"It seems many of the notorious clampers have moved their sharp practices to private parking enforcement. Others seem to have adopted strong arm tactics to threaten drivers into paying tickets that are often unjust and set at an unreasonable level compared to those issued by regulated local authorities." He highlighted that while there is an official appeals process, it has a serious backlog, and many people are not aware they can take advantage of it.

But what do you think? Should the DVLA be selling our details to prevent illegal parking, or should it be protecting drivers from heavy-handed parking enforcement companies?

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