DVLA pledges investigation over Castrol spy posters The DVLA's sideline in selling data to marketing companies is under renewed scrutiny after Castrol used it to target drivers with personalised billboard advertising. The poster campaign - at five high profile locations in London - was scheduled to run for two weeks but was pulled last week after just four days, following …
Oh yeah? Sounds a bloody sight more "appropriate" than the service being punted on the telly at the moment where you text in a registration number and get back all the details on the car and a ballpark value based on what it is.
I wonder where the information to tie a registration number to a specific make, model, year and specification of car required to do this is coming from?
"DVLA provides vehicle information under strict contractual terms to the motor industry to ensure vehicles are fitted with the correct parts, including brakes, tyres and oil."
So before the DVLA did this people were always fitting the wrong parts to their cars? The only way of finding out the make and model of your car is to ask the DVLA?
They are either stupid or liars.
Well, that's a useful service. The correct oil for your car is obviously "absolutely anything that isn't Castrol", since you'd essentially be loading your engine with 7 parts oil and 3 parts empty air, representing the proportion of the sticker price that goes to their Strategy Boutique to think up "exciting, intriguing" intrusive marketing bullshit.
there's also someone at the moment advertising a service where you sned a text with a car reg number and it comes back with make/model of the car and an estimate of its current value + some stats on performance etc. Clearly aimed at someone looking to buy a 2nd hand car ... but I suspect there must be some potential for misuse.
All it is is your car information. What good/bad is that going to do to anyone? I dont understand why anyone would worry about somone else knowing what car they have?
Surely if you did, you would want to gouge everyone's eyes out for looking at you when you drive past them in your car?
You're not going to stop companies advertising, so I why stop them trying to sell you things you might actually want, or dare I say it, need??
So what? it got the make and model from the number plate and used that to suggest oil?
1. If the recognition software was better it wouldn't need the number plate.
2. You don't own a number plate, the DVLA do (not even a chavvy one).
3. There were no personal details used
Now, if it flashed up the last recorded owners name, that would be a problem.
Although, distracting a specific driver (deliberately) is probably a bit stupid, my guess it's just a publicity stunt, if you object to this then boycot Castrol, if you have your oil changed at a garage then tell them you don't want Castrol, simple.
Lucky it was Castrol, a reputable company and public, so people are aware of it and lucky the only info published was the oil requirement. But it also means that data is likely being misused by less reputable less public companies.
If DVLA let the data out for such trivia, then it's been handed out freely to all comers for all reasons.
If the details held by the DVLA for your registration are out of date then it's *your* responsibility. IIRC failure to inform the DVLA of any change is subject to a fine of up to £5000, withdrawal of your sad personalized plate and confiscation of the vehicle.
Are you saying that the DVLA think your plate is assigned to one vehicle, while you've fitted it to another? If this is the case then how do you get a valid tax disc? The disc has vehicle details on it which presumably won't match your current car. Futhernore this would mean your insurance was invalid. Which means your either some sort of insurance dodging scumbag or you're talking nonsense.
Which is it?
Surely Castrol would be better aiming the adverts at the people actually responsible for changing engine oil.
The number of drivers who know where to top up their oil is probably falling year on year, especially as the current wave of motors that don't allow you or indeed anyone but the manufacturer to do an oil change, Audi for example.
So this is what we can expect when the Go Vermin start to flog off the data in the NHS system.
ALF
Course you could always look up the registration no on any of the insurance websites (minor screen scraping needed). I also remember that some of the tyre companies had them (national?)
not that anyone would check the details to match whats registered against say a carpark and flag up 'unwanted / suspect' ones for tipoffs....
So when's the first defence of being distracted by it, causing an accident, going to be mounted? Where I live we have distracting extremely childish flashing speed signs that have little smiley faces if you are going at the correct speed or some that flash "Thank you" at you. What a load of twaddle. Someone must think the driving age limit has just been lowered to seven!
Go to the DVLA website and there is a link to here -> http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1081597476&r.l3=1082104761&topicId=1082032108&r.lc=en&r.l2=1082103262&r.s=tl
-they state that you can buy 29 items of car data from any of 5 intermediatries that can be used for marketing or setting up a car dealership.
They actively encourage it!
A quote from the website:
How the data can be used
Vehicle data contains the first part of each vehicle keeper's postcode. This can give you an idea of the distribution of vehicles across Great Britain by make, model and body type.
This might help you decide where to locate a dealership for a particular type or make of vehicle.
You might also find this data useful when planning advertising or promotional campaigns. The data may help you target particular areas where people are more likely to buy new vehicles or tend to own larger or smaller vehicles.
Years and years ago, some guru urged that public bodies be run in a more business-like fashion. The thought behind the suggestion was that as then structured, it was impossible for government to figure out what parts of it were yielding net revenue and which parts were a net cost. Indeed, this problem, on a gargantuan scale, is what sank the old Soviet economy.
The problem arose when "run in a more business-like fashion" (i.e. with proper financial controls) was re-phrased as "run like a business." All of a sudden, the words "profit center" loomed large.
Any ninny (except politicians and die-hard capitalists) knows that government isn't a business and never will be. It's "customers" aren't customers at all; they're a captive market and they have no alternative. Want a driver's license or a passport? You have only one government body to turn to, with no competition.
I'll leave it as an exercise how this perverted p.o.v. evolved into the idea that a government body is free to sell its records to anyone with cash in hand, with privacy being a non-issue.
This is a perfect example of how the government isn't protecting our data at all. Not only do they fail to protect our data, they are actually selling it! ... Plus how long before we get this with RFID ID cards.
"DVLA today said such use was "inappropriate" and it was "urgently investigating""
So they consider its ok for other forms of exploitation of OUR PERSONAL DATA, but not this case. Companies wouldn't buy the data if they couldn't see a way to exploit the data for personal gain! ... so *Every leak of our data is a leak* ... Plus if they leak OUR DATA even just once, then that can be copied and spread to other companies, either in raw form or in some reprocessed form.
They should fire everyone in government who has sold, leaked or allowed personal data to slip into the hands of any business.
That includes firing everyone in local government who sell OUR data.
This shows the people in government are utterly corrupt. They are blatantly exploiting us for their gain. Sell everyones data, more money for government.
Of course if you can see a plate, you can see a make and model. Having a service to check it out is fine. What isn't fine is the DVLA giving out personal information to people claiming to be parking companies. This will change the first time someone sees an attractive woman driver, and gets the DVLA to help in tracking her down. I can see a big compensation case on the horizon.
@All of you moaning about the DVLA giving away your details:
Seriously, who the smeg cares if, from the reg plate, you can get to the make/model/engine type from the reg plate? It should be plainly obvious from looking at the car the reg plate's screwed to what the first two are! I for one find the Castrol website useful because it will tell me from the reg plate what oil a particular car needs, and more importantly, how much (sump capacity), as well trans fluid, diff lube...etc. Doesn't necessarily mean I buy Castrol oil, as it's overpriced...
The real problem is that the DVLA will sell Driver's details to every cowboy clamping outfit out there! Direct your daggers at that particular outrage, ladies and gentleman, not a potentially useful service.
For the record, I don't think extending this service to advertising boards is a good idea (Driver distraction), but if it makes the great unwashed think about the implications of ANPR p'raps it's a good thing.
Mine's the one with the used engine oil stain down the sleeve...
Anonymous Coward's reg-to-paedo and RotaCyclic's pervy key-to-pretty-girl-phone-number system could be improved, as keying in the number while accelerating away up the A13 will trigger the mobilePhoneWhileDriving alert or even cause a rear-end shunt as first encounter. Wait until the entire AND system is available as a Maplin electronic kit incorporating a camera which scans the reg of the car in front and some image processing software linked to mobile phone technology. Then one click on a button passes the reg to the DVLA/ISA/CRB/MI6/PaedofinderGeneral/Childline/Facebook/whatever and you get back the CRB check , wall, profile, perfume, typing speed and perfume of the driver in front texted to your mobile or to your Facebook e-mail. Brilliant!
The system also doubles up to automatically recognize "How's my driving? Phone 0800 123456" on the livery and send random offensive allegations of crappy driving to the boss -- all at the touch of a button.
Of course this all depends on the ISA and Facebook details being accurate, which depends on a subtle interplay between the accuracy of CRB checks, DVLA records, Facebook profile creators, and that of assorted social services snitches.
Well the people who will see the billboard will also be able to see the cars in front of the billboard so DPA-wise, it's hardly telling anyone anything they couldn't find out if they used their eyes?
As for it not being an 'appropriate' use, I think a different word might be more appropriate here?
>> >>...the details of my registration plate according to the DVLA are 3 years out of date
>>
>> Then you're almost certainly breaking the law for failing to properly notify them of a change.
What makes you think he hasn't notified the DVLA. Notifying the DVLA !== the DVLA updating their database. I was stopped by the police 3 months after I bought my because it was showing no registered keeper or tax details - I was there when the dealer bought the tax and sent off the new keeper suppliment.
It may be his responsibility to inform the DVLA of changes - if he was the registered keeper at the time, however he isn't responsible for the DVLA updating his details, nor is he responsible for the DVLA passing the new registration details to the companies who have bought the DVLA's data.
I don't see the problem. Cars makes and models aren't people, vehicle registration numbers aren't people - ergo this is not personal data. Anybody looking at your car can see what it's number plate, make and model are. Whether or not the DVLA and private companies should be allowed to profit from what is essentially a public database, that they are required to run is a different matter.
Reminds me of the PAF (Postoffice postcode/address database) and OS maps. We pay for these organisations to collect and store the data, then we have to pay them again if we want to access it. In the case of PAF it is (or certainly was until recently) cost prohibitive for individuals and small companies to access it, whilst large companies get it (effictively) very cheaply - granted the cost may be great, but their usage is very, very great. Likewise we have a national network of roads that we pay for, and we pay Ordanence Survey to keep upto date maps of where those roads are and when they will change, but when we buy a sat. nav. we end up with rubbish, inaccurate Tele-Atlas maps which if they aren't out of date when we buy them, they soon will be - purely because it is cost prohibitive for Sat-Nav suppliers to use OS data. I remember the days when you bought any atlas of Britain and it showed the roads accurately as they were, complete with any currently planned changes to major roads.
It can tell me the official paint colour for my car.
But, a few years ago, DVLA got things badly wrong with a combine harvester, and I got a bill from a company looking after a supermarket car-park in London. I checked with the Police, since there was possibly a car running around with a false plate. I was told that the Police don't trust the DVLA records. It's common for there to be two different versions of a record: in this case one with my address and one showing the vehicle had been exported.
(Pure chance: it happened to be somebody I knew on duty at the Police Station, and things were quiet. I didn't see the computer screen.)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
