This is a remarkable story, concerning the DVLA. It is yet another case of the evil way in which the mixed economy is often mixed these days. What happens is that a government agency is compelled by some idiot law or other to pretend that it is a business, and to sell its “product”, to businesses who then stop being proper businesses and become crypto-state parasites.
And something like this happens:
What is happening is this: requests come in from businesses that have relevance to parking – clampers, car park managers, even a financial services company that happens to have a car park in which, notionally, people might leave their cars without permission. The DVLA charges a few thousand pounds for a link to its database, and thereafter the commercial company has only to tap in any registration number to be sent the owner’s name and address. If crooked, it could collect car numbers from anywhere in the country, enter them and thereafter know when you are away from home. Or it could send you threatening letters, of extortion or blackmail, citing your car details and claiming a violation.
But the DVLA wouldn’t deal with such people, would it? Yep. It does. It has been forced to hand over its list of the 157 companies registered to buy personal information about drivers – the list includes bailiffs, debt collection agencies and financial services companies. DVLA bleats that it is obliged – under an undebated Statutory Instrument of 2002 – to sell the information to anyone with “reasonable cause”.
As Libby Purves goes on to say:
. . . this piece of roughshod arrogance, done in the interests of tackling only the moderate nuisance of bad parking, throws a lurid light on what could happen to our privacy if we get ID cards to boost the “war on terror”. So far I have been lukewarm on the issue, only doubting that the cards would be good value (every atrocity so far has been committed by people whose papers were in order). But now I am not lukewarm. I am almost prepared to join Simon Hughes, the fiery Lib Dem, who has just pledged to go to prison over the issue. Given the casual attitude of the DVLA, willing to turn a penny by selling our addresses to any old crook, what would happen with information-rich ID cards and bureaucrats of similar calibre?
The root problem is that we have almost no means of holding government and its appendages to account.
Every day, it appears that some unelected agency imposes some further monstrous imposition on the people it is supposed to be serving – be it the ubiquitous ‘elf an’ safety or the DVLA. Or the BBC, come to that.
And yet the only sanction we have over them is a vote every few years for a government which, by its very nature, only adds to the burden.
Sooner or later, unless something changes, there is going to be a violent reaction to this. I don’t imagine it will be very enjoyable when it happens.
Libby Purves obviously hasn’t followed the ID story too closely. When she says,
“Given the casual attitude of the DVLA, willing to turn a penny by selling our addresses to any old crook, what would happen with information-rich ID cards and bureaucrats of similar calibre?”
She is obviously unaware that Nulab were discussing the sale of ID info to businesses earlier this year. Here is a snippet from a BBC News online article of 26th June 2005 quoting an article from The Independent newspaper:
”…ministers had started talks with private companies to pass on personal details for “an initial cost” of £750.”
Far from trying to hide this measure Nulab were proud to justify it as promising to offset the cost of the system for the card holders. And guess what, millions of the mugs will accept this, and be grateful to Nulab for coming up with such a brilliant wheeze to save them money.
You’d be amazed what government databases are for sale if you ask around. All kinds of stuff that you would normally think confidential is for sale for a few grand a year.
To take a (hypothetical, but technically quite possible) example: I see your car and query my copy of the DVLA database for your name and address. The Land Registry database will then tell me when you bought your house, and how much you paid (as well as other information like the kind of building it is, whether you have freehold or leasehold etc). Couple this with some quick queries to some demographics databases and I can make a pretty good guess at your profession, income, marital status, number of children, savings, equity, pension plan, even how many televisions you have and where you take your holidays.
And all I had to work with was a picture of your car. When biometric ID cards go live I may be able to get all that information from a latent fingerprint or CCTV footage of your face.
The information available like this will only increase – the government seems to be making it a policy to get a “return on investment” for the data it holds. They are setting no precedent for respect of privacy; the citizens of the UK are just so much data to be sold.
GCooper – The British people were supine. They were passive. They let it happen to them. They let spine and bravery be “educated” out of their children. They let pride in their history and their race be “educated” out of their children.
With the volumes of achievement in science, technology, medicine, public health (as in sewers and public water supplies), trains, literature (too vast to enumerate), bravery of the British people, these children of our island race are left with nothing.
But that was always the plan. And the British let it happen. When Tony Blair slithered in under the door of Downing St, I saw, in his crooked, empty eyes and his sleazy “smile” and his prancy “style” riding a bike in Holland and suddenly being the father of a baby – a “young family”, at age 47 or whatever, the writing on the wall and hastened out. I saw this was long-term evil, and it may never be reversed.
It breaks my heart.
I was somewhat taken aback the other week when I rang Autoglass in order to get a thumping great ding removed from my windscreen. I told the call centre operative the car’s registraton number as requested and as the information appeared on his screen the person replied, “Oh, yes, your insurance covers the work. Although you’ll need to pay an excess if we have to replace the glass.”
Yes it was all very seamless, Autoglass bill the insurance company directly, but I didn’t like the fact that a company I’d never had any dealings with previously could know so much about my other arrangements at the press of a button.
Indeed, as Brian says, and I second Verity’s remarks, which though harsh, are totally justified. The British people have allowed themselves to become sheep in the face of mounting assaults on our civil liberties.
The abuses sketched out here will be as nothing compared to what is going to happen if the ID card proposal becomes law. (I notice that the usually oh-so-reasonable defender of such things, Euan Gray, has so far not blessed us with his thoughts).
I don’t know if I would have the courage to go to jail to avoid carrying the blasted things, but I can see this issue triggering violence. And of course by the time that happens in years to come, that arch-authortarian Blair will probably be sponging off some when that happens.
ugh.
Given that it remains a criminal offence (Misuse of Computers Act) for a police officer to access the vehicle PNC – which is directly linked in to the DVLA – for commercial or private reasons, I wonder where this leaves the civil servants at the DVLA who feel they have the right to sell information on motorists? In fact the very first test of the MOCA was the prosecution of a police officer who was asked by a friend to check up on a vehicle registration number.
Public servants and government officers are not subject to the Data Protection Act though, so I should think that the faceless minions of Swansea probably use that as their excuse.
The copper who was prosecuted was working on the black. It used to be the case that private investigators had to cultivate a policeman so they could get access to this sort of information. Now, it seems PI’s and other snoops can get the information by paying Mr State for it directly. Obviously, Mr State does not wish to be undercut in his dealings by any of his employees doing a foreigner, hence the new law. Brilliant, in a purely twisted and amoral way.
In the socialist republic of Scotland, the new housing act will make it illegal to rent any property without first registering as a landlord (and then only if you are deemed fit to be a landlord).
Your name, address and phone number will then be made available on a freely available website so that your tenant (and anybody else) can ring you up and hassle you.
Brian, apologies as O/T, but your own site is inaccessible to me this morning. This, I thought, represented a partial victory for you:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4485062.stm
Refering to James o/t posting –
When I was young it wasn’t called ‘synthetic phonics’. It was called ‘learning to spell’.
In the socialist republic of Scotland, the new housing act will make it illegal to rent any property without first registering as a landlord (and then only if you are deemed fit to be a landlord).
Meanwhile the Home Office proposes (see their Regulatory Impact Assessment) that a good use of ID cards will be to register who rents any property, or even a hotel room.
The desire of bureaucracies to monitor and control is without limit. I hate to say it, but Michel Foucault was right: surveillance is more pernicious than punishment.
What did anybody expect of this bunch of West Lothian carpetbaggers?
I am very impressed that Libby Purves, a high ranking BBC Radio 4 person, not only has one of the sexiest voices on radio but appears to also be capable of independent thought.
VIVE LA REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WHEN AND WHERE??
Its time we as a people with”equal rights and opportunities” stood up and stopped the ILLUMINATI!! before its to late.
NO MATTER HOW BIG,HOW RICH OR POWERFUL “WE” WILL ALWAYS BE STRONGER!!!
VIVE LA REVOLUTION!!WHEN AND WHERE!!
Lets not forget that they are actually chipping children in the UK with verichip and trials have begun in schools too!! The media hype over maddy mccann has frightened parents into thinking they need this chip and not forgetting the knife crime hype- this is also being used in deprived areas to scare people into getting chipped. 7/7 probably would have worked too if britain wasn’t so resiliant to those sorts of tactics( ie N. Ireland, the Blitz etc..)
I speak as a veteran of N.Ireland, Iraq and Afghan and I am thoroughly ashamed of the wars and fully oppose them. I have a group on face book- “say no to the new world order” and I am planning a “veterans against the war” march/protest in Norwich later this year.
John.