Press Release - Embargoed until we get our act together
Today the DVLA would like to announce a new motorist-friendly aspect to our Data Protection services. You will remember we were caught with our pants down recently when we said we checked private parking company Parking Charge Notices for compliance, and then it turned out we didn't after all? And when we tried to stiff motorists for £5 when we only charge private parking companies £2.50?
Honestly, we wouldn't be surprised if the general public think we shuffle around with our pants around our ankles all day, waiting for a stern birching from any private parking company employees that happen to be wandering around. We can assure you that is not the case. Private parking company employees have to make an appointment like anyone else.
Anyway, we rethought it all, and would like to announce that we will shortly be providing a service to verify the notices sent out. Once we agree they are compliant, we will post template pictures of notices from that company up on our website, together with an easy to follow guide explaining how all the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 are met. Pictures, numbers and arrows; that kind of thing.
In the meantime, a quick check of the notices sent out by private parking companies showed that actually none of them are compliant. The private parking companies know this, of course. Therefore, until we get our act together and start the audit, any private parking company sending you a notice mentioning the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 is quite possibly committing fraud.
Please therefore send in a copy of your notice to our complaints department, and we will investigate.
The address to use is:
Release of Information
Paying Enquiries Section
DVLA
Swansea
S99 1AJ
Please enclose a short covering note.
I would like to complain that you have released my data inappropriately. I enclose a Parking Charge showing that I am being pursued as the keeper, while the notice is clearly not compliant. Please investigate and take the appropriate action.
As we currently help line the pockets of private parking companies to the tune of 2 million tickets a year, we hope we can get our auditing done before we get swamped with your requests, but as we are the DVLA we are not making any promises.
EXCITING!
We would also like to announce a second exciting initiative. Whenever we get a request for your data, we will send you a letter explaining this has happened, and the reasons behind it. We thought that this would be impossible until one bright spark in data processing reminded us that we already had your address. Duh! Sometimes we can't see our hand in front of our face (to be fair, this is usually because we are wearing our pants over our head, which only happens on Fridays)
We will fund this at no cost to the taxpayer by increasing the charge to the private parking company. After a month of consultation we discovered that the cost of a second class stamp is 50p, and that black and white printing costs were 1p a page. After another month of consultation we discovered that the £2.50 we charge the private parking company was almost all pure profit. They send us the request electronically and our computers automatically reply. It's like magic, only without any Harry Potters. It practically costs nothing at all. That was a bit embarrassing because we seem to remember categorically stating that we made no profit from this, while it turns out we made almost £5 million. Whoops, trousers down time again.
Anyway, we might be minded to up the cost to the private parking company to £3.00 because if we can't stiff it to the motorist any more we will need another whipping boy.
As before, we don't know how long it will take to do this, so if you want to know if a parking company was compliant with the required timescales when accessing your data, please word your request as a complaint (see above). Otherwise we might accidently still charge you the £5.
No Copyright
In the interests of getting the ball rolling, The Prankster waives all copyright on his imaginary press release. The DVLA may freely copy and use any and all parts of the text they wish to.
On a serious note, The Prankster firmly believes that none of the current Parking Charge Notices are compliant with the regulations. On that note, the address to complain to is:
Release of InformationAnd as copyright is waived, an appropriate cover note might be:
Paying Enquiries Section
DVLA
Swansea
S99 1AJ
I would like to complain that you have released my data inappropriately. I enclose a Parking Charge showing that I am being pursued as the keeper, while the notice is clearly not compliant. Please investigate and take the appropriate action.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
The DVLA are grateful to the Parking Prankster for bringing these matters to attention of the public. Plans have already been submitted to Swansea Planning Dept for a three story extension at DVLA Towers and the recruitment process for the new expanded data sharing complaints department will commence shortly. In the meantime, keep sending those complaints in!
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