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Some UK Councils Barred From Using Gov't Vehicle Database

Posted by timothy on from the and-for-just-a-few-pounds-more dept.

Bruce66423 writes "A number of British councils are being banned from accessing the national Vehicle Database system. While sometimes this appears to be due to technical infractions, the banning of some 'permanently' seems to be as a result of more serious misdemeanours. Trust the government? Not a good idea..."

5 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Why not? by FaxeTheCat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trust the government? Not a good idea..."

    Why not? The government taking action where they find indications of abuse. Surely that cannot be a problem?

    The fact that there are users and user organizations making improper use of the data is how the world works. That is why "the government" check and ban those who abuse the data.

    1. Re:Why not? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Insightful
      councils are local government - national government is banning local government from accessing the vehicle database. Not sure why any local government should have access to the vehicle database anyway. All taxation, etc, is done by national government.

      The data keeps getting sold to debt collectors, which may have something to do with it.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    2. Re:Why not? by Vulch · · Score: 5, Informative

      Parking enforcement is dealt with at local level which is wh they have access in the first place.

    3. Re:Why not? by Mendy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not sure why any local government should have access to the vehicle database anyway. All taxation, etc, is done by national government.

      The council I used to work for had access to identify the owners of abandoned cars. We didn't have access to identify fly-tippers or people who might be disposing of trade waste at household sites which I understood would have made that job easier or indeed possible so some of the violations could have been through this kind of temptation or ignorance about the limitations.

      Technically it was quite a secure system - access was done from a private, locked room via a dedicated ISDN line whose number was registered with them and then several levels of authentication by users who had had to sign an agreement. They were very strict about the paperwork being up to date so I can believe the comments in the article about some having lost their access temporarily due to not getting the renewal forms back in time.

    4. Re:Why not? by Gordonjcp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, that's just it - it *isn't*, it's an example of government working well. "Oh sorry, you dicked about and broke the rules, now you don't get to use the DVLA data". Simple.

      What I'm getting at is that every story timothy posts about the UK has his unique brand of editorialising on it, trying to paint this country as some sort of Orwellian hell-hole. It makes me wonder what horrors he's trying to distract his followers from in the US.