DVLA says council snoopers are free to take the WEE Government officials hit back at accusations last week that they were encouraging councils to break the law and snoop on local residents, claiming instead that not only are they entitled to do so, but that they are required to by law. A report in last week’s Sunday Express pillories local councils for acting unlawfully and …
Thw data holder should also be the gatekeeper to the data vault.
Few people can be trusted not to use abuse database information and since this data contains personal information the fewer people who have direct access, including police, the better.
Government cannot be trusted.
The "owner" was seen getting into a car in North London while a dog was seen being out of control and fouling sidewalks in Cornwall - Obviously that person is the owner and therefore a fair cop, eh?
Or, does having someone's dog always foul the sidewalk next to your car call for a bill in the Post for you to pay for the cleanup?
Automated law (or council mandate, policy, etc) enforcement IS ALWAYS A FAIL. Never assume someone behind a computer screen engages the "LOGIC" part of the brain...
CCTV Britain eh?
Now you WILL be monitored by your local authority and if your actions are found to infringe legislation then they will track you via your car reg and fine you.
Not only that, your local authority is apparently obliged to do so and with apparent impunity no doubt... I would say it's the start of a very slippery slope but it's more like the bit where everything starts to accelerate un-controllably.
Someone fraudulently registered a car to my home address (then got loads of fines/balif letters)
I phoned the DVLA to let them know and they couldnt do anything about it without the guys registration plate. Totally useless ******.
Their solution was to open the post address to this guy >_<
You'd know they nail your balls to the wall if you don't reach down and pick up your dog's shit, but horses are seemingly allowed to crap bucketloads across your driveway with complete impunity. Perhaps the solution is to sweep your dog's deposits under one of the ever-handy mounds of equine expulsions...
So, if someone commits an offence and then uses their car, local councils aren't allowed to use the registration number to find out who the offender might be? This is a "good thing" why?
For examples :
Out of control dogs menace someone and shit on the path, then jump into vehicle and drive away. That would be a council issue so they aren't allowed to find out who owns the car that the dogs jump into. (Which would be a good starting point for an investigation.)
The next day, the same out of control dogs savage someone, then jump into vehicle and drive away. That would be a police matter and they're allowed to query the DB.
I say : pillory the Sunday Express for acting like a bunch of criminal friendly pillocks.
As well as whoever specified the rules for querying the database.
Seems sensible that any offence committed by someone who could be identified with the aid of number plate searches would generate a legal query.
PS Did anyone else get confused about why the DVLA would want the council to take away their Waste Electrical Equipment? Too many words, too few different TLAs...
Not just local authorities - they'll dish your data out to any old Joe who can fudge up a case of
"reasonable cause".
(From the DVLA website:)
Data Protection and the Road Vehicles Regulations
Regulation 27 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 provides for the release of information from DVLA’s vehicles register to the police and also to local authorities. The regulation allows us to release data to private or public sector organisations providing they can demonstrate ‘reasonable cause’ to have it and the Data Protection Act does not operate to prevent disclosure of the data where this is done consistently with the data protection principles.
This just seems to be another unnecessary way of getting hold of information that may (or, more likely, may not) be of any use. Most owners who let their dogs foul on the pavement don't normally accompany their pets in their cars. Nor do horseriders for that matter - although it would be an interesting sight... OK, so fly-tippers, perhaps, but the Police can raise a DPA-30 (or whatever form it is now) to request the information from the DVLA, so granting carte blanche access to a private database seems pointless.
I was pulled about 4 years ago by a police officer who had been told the car I was driving was stolen. I sat at the side of the road for 45 minutes (from 11pm to near-on midnight) while the poor bloke who sold me the car tried to convince the hapless rozzers that the deal was above board. Why didn't the police believe us? Because the DVLA hadn't updated their records and still had the owner listed as being in another town. So, a case of guilty UNTIL proven innocent. Fail, fail, fail. Even with the info available they'll still fuck up!
Would this evidence be admissable in a court of law if it was obtained without a warrant? Has it been challenged and tested in a court of law yet? If it's validity isn't challenged the court may permit is by default, it's not until it's challenged that it will be tested. It isn't up to the DVLA or any other government body to say whether or not it's legal, it has to be tested in a court of law. In the last decade or so the civil service have got very cocky in saying what is and isn't legal.
Even so the problem with using the DVLA database is that there is a difference between identifying the registered keeper and the driver at the time the vehicle was spotted. If the car was seen comitting a motoring offence the registered keeper is required by law to respond to a police request to identify the driver. If they can't do so or refuse to do so they may be fined. AFAIK this currently only covers the police, not local authorities. So should the local authority request that the driver of the car be named the registered keeper can say nothing with impunity.
There was a case a while ago where a friend of mine was accused of fly tipping because (and you'll love this) his car had been seen parked in the layby at about the time the tipping occurred. Turns out that "about the time" meant the same week and that the LA had actually tried to pin it on several other drivers. The best part of this was their evidence gathering was not based on CCTV but the say so of a nosy neighbour. Can you imagine that reaching a court of law? The "witness" didn't actually see the offence being comitted but saw a car parked there lagally in the same week as the offence was comitted. Needless to say the accused told the LA to go away and come back when they had some proper evidence and never heard from them again.
Can I take it that the vast majority of Register readers feel that it's ok for people to drop litter, for dogs to foul the foot path, to dump rubbish where they feel, and that we should just accept it.
All of the above are in the scheme of things relatively trivial to everyone but the people who are affected by it. Do you really like walking down streets covered in excrement and litter, probably not. Are you willing to remonstrate with a dog owner or litterer or fly tipper, absolutely not, bad things might happen. All of these things are stuff we expect others to police for us, and with our reliance on vehicles registration numbers are a good way of identifying people who commit these civil offences which the Police won't investigate. How else would you expect people to be caught and stopped. If the Police are the only people who can use a registration plate to find some one, how do you expect your insurance company to catch the white van man who scrapes the side of you car when you give them the registration number?
I smell a deal of hypocrisy in the air.
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