Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Information Commissioner’s Office about the DVLA selling driver registration plate numbers to car parking firms.

Andrew Jones

The table below shows the income received by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) from processing requests for information from private parking management companies over the last five financial years. The DVLA sets fees to recover the cost of processing requests and does not make a profit from providing this information.

The DVLA releases vehicle keeper information to those who can show reasonable cause for receiving it. The following table shows the number of requests from private car parking management companies for vehicle keeper information processed via electronic links over the last five financial years.

The vast majority of requests for vehicle keeper information are made electronically but information can also be requested using a paper application form. However, these requests come from a range of customers including private car parking management companies and the figures are not broken down by customer type.

The DVLA meets regularly with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to discuss a range of issues, including the provision of information for private parking management. The ICO’s most recent audit resulted in a high assurance rating relating to the release of information from the DVLA’s vehicle record.