DVLA Details Should Not Be Given To Commercial Companies

9.25.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 13th Dec 2007

West Worcestershire's Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Richard Burt has criticised the Government for allowing personal data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to be passed to companies for commercial gain.

DVLA officials have admitted that they pass on personal information of registered drivers to at least one company, Civil Enforcement, who issue parking fines on more than 700 privately owned car parks, including McDonald's.

Mr Burt's wife, Lorely Burt MP, who is Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party, will now table Parliamentary Questions in Westminster to question the practice.

Richard Burt said: "Government is losing personal information held on computers almost on a daily basis. Now we discover that they are handing over details of registered drivers and car owners to a commercial company that is making money out issuing fines to drivers of vehicles using private car parks.

"I am sure this is the last thing any driver imagined would happen to their personal information entrusted to the DVLA. It seems a clear breach of the spirit embodied in the law on data protection and should be challenged in Parliament."

"Any police officer who passed on information from the DVLA in this way would be subject to a disciplinary charge."

Mrs Burt said that she would be tabling Parliamentary Questions to ministers asking the amount of any charges made to supply information from the DVLA to commercial companies, how many companies are supplied, the number of individuals whose details have been supplied and what other personal information is passed on or sold to commercial organisations from government databases?