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 …
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...the details of my registration plate according to the DVLA are 3 years out of date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.)
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