It has been revealed that the DVLA was able to make £10m in just one year by selling off the personal details and addresses of many people. They sold the information at about 50,000 per week which totals up to about 2.4m names and addresses in a year. The information was given to companies that hand out parking fines and also in some cases choose to clamp cars.
Companies often purchase details in order to use tougher tactics against the drivers they fine in order to enforce more fines that number much higher amounts. These tactics have been questioned quite a bit over the last few years.
Labour MP Graham Stringer stated that he believes that the firms that purchase information from the DVLA are crooks and use the information to threaten people. With this in mind, Stringer said that he does not approve of the DVLA selling the information because even if the firms have been approved for business there is not a proper way to make sure that they properly use private information.
Many drivers are completely surprised when they receive fines that were assessed via the use of number plate recognition and CCTV. Therefore, they only find out that they have been fined when they receive a letter in the mail. At this point they have forgotten any incident that could have occurred completely.
In 2012 the DVLA made £10.4m by selling driver details and over half of this money was made by allowing insurance companies and finance companies to access their databases. The DVLA has a £2.50 charge for every time an approved organisation runs a check on the DVLA system. However, in 2012 twenty companies were banned from accessing the database for a three year period because of improper use.
