Data Protection Act

taffy056

Full of questions today, but save clogging up threads with random questions.

As the PPC must comply with the data protection act, and they use cameras to record vehicles entering and leaving car parks, plus the information they get by the dvla, and possibly by their field scammers, can we not require them to send all info to you for a maximum of £10, do you think getting thousands of requests would cost them a hell of a lot more money and resources that they have, could the act of asking for this information drive them out of business ?

anewman

Well I suppose £10 for five minutes work is less than £70.

TBH I suspect it would just be more profit, albeit less than scamming people who stayed 10 seconds longer than time allowed.

Scam baiting is likely to be more effective at wasting their resources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scam_baiting Contact them pretending to be interested in paying and just waste their time all the time.

Ask "what 16 digit number" numerous times, give them false credit card details, and so on. Much fun to be had. Pretend to be an old confused person so they get desperate to keep trying to extort the money out of you while you do this. Keep them on the phone for as long as possible - make sure any number you use is local rate and not national/premium as they can make money out of those.

taffy056

Just been looking at the web around this, and you would have to supply proof idendity etc to the scammers, so I guess you wouldn't want to confirm your id..... Oh well

taffy056

I've done some scam baiting in my time, lots of 419 fun to be had

forgotmyname

£10 for one A4 sheet with you and your cars details and maybe a small photo printed on it of your vehicle?

I can think of much better things to do with £10.

taffy056

forgotmyname wrote: »

£10 for one A4 sheet with you and your cars details and maybe a small photo printed on it of your vehicle?

I can think of much better things to do with £10.

Not if they have to provide the video as well, remember its all information they hold, besides they have got to provide where they got the information from, which in some cases the ppc is not on the list of operators to get this info from the dvla, so it comes from a third party who is supplying the info in breach of the regs of the dvla.

The reason I was asking is that they are not allowed to make a profit on a request, and by supplying an A4 sheet with a few things on they would be making a profit, the reason I asked is because it would pee them off, and possibly make them lose money by putting them in a position of answering thousands of requests.

esmerobbo

I had a similar thread on CAG were as I asked about the use of gathering this evidence. If these companies are using monitored CCTV then the CCTV operator needs to be SIA licensed. If they use the cheaper recorded system were someone sits and goes through it later they don't.

Email I got from SIA.

Dear Esmerobbo,

Thank you for your email.

I can advise that if a parking company are using employees to monitor footage, the individuals would be required to be SIA licensed.

However, you have enquired as to whether this entitles them to gain information from such departments as the DVLA, as we just deal with the licensing of individuals, I would advise for you to contact the DVLA as I am not sure of the circumstances in which they can give informationto 3rd party's.

If you wish to make any further enquiries please contact us on 0844 892 1025 between 8am – 8pm Monday to Friday.

Yours sincerely


SIA Contact Centre

You do have a right to see any CCTV footage they have of you as long as it was recorded in a public accessible area ether public or private. It would cause them all sorts of problems as they would have to make anyone else obscure.
I gathered this information when a PPC came after me as the RK. Was nice first said not the driver go away. They claimed I was responsible, so sent them a letter requesting the name of the licence holder for their CCTV system, funny they never got back to me. Not even a threatogram.:D

robredz

Have any of these Parking Enforcers gone down the Civil Recovery route, and threatened them with the dishonesty database run by Retail loss Prevention, as they obviously regard non payment of their invoice akin to shop crasting (from A Clockwork Orange)? If this other bunch Retail Loss Prevention stuck their oar in, especially in car parks in ASDA and others using the services of RLP to sue shoplifters and became involved , perhaps the Data Commissioner would become more interested in breaches of DPA by the parking Parasites , as unlike shoplifting, no crime had actually been committed

trisontana

robredz wrote: »

Have any of these Parking scammers gone down the Civil Recovery route, and threatened them with the dishonesty database run by Retail loss Prevention, as they obviously regard non payment of their invoice akin to shop crasting (from A Clockwork Orange)? If this other bunch Retail Loss Prevention stuck their oar in, especially in car parks in ASDA and others using the services of RLPto sue shoplifters and became involved , perhaps the Data Commissioner would become more interested in breaches of DPA by the scammers, as unlike shoplifting, no crime had actually been committed

Civil Recovery was mentioned on the BBC's You and Yours programme a couple of days ago. It turns out that no properly defended case has actually been heard in the civil court. Most people just cave in and pay before it reaches that stage. These are the same tactics employed by PPC's, I.E frighten people into paying up.

robredz

trisontana wrote: »

Civil Recovery was mentioned on the BBC's You and Yours programme a couple of days ago. It turns out that no properly defended case has actually been heard in the civil court. Most people just cave in and pay before it reaches that stage. These are the same tactics employed by PPC's, I.E frighten people into paying up.

The issue as I see it though is that these Civil recovery people actually have a database, and if they linked with the likes of Excel parking, who regard their potentially illegal PCNs as evidence of a crime, which it isn't it is a tortious liability at best with little or no loss, unlike shoplifting which IS a crime, although RLP are chasing people who have not been charged, or taken to court, how long before they link up with Retail loss Prevention and it's database of "alleged criminals"to try to increase the pressure, on victims to pay up?

If they did i think that the data commissioner would be most interested in the database.

BTW which region was the programme shown on?

trisontana

robredz wrote: »

The issue as I see it though is that these Civil recovery people actually have a database, and if they linked with the likes of Excel parking, who regard their potentially illegal PCNs as evidence of a crime, which it isn't it is a tortious liability at best with little or no loss, unlike shoplifting which IS a crime, although RLP are chasing people who have not been charged, or taken to court, how long before they link up with Retail loss Prevention and it's database of "alleged criminals"to try to increase the pressure, on victims to pay up?

If they did i think that the data commissioner would be most interested in the database.

BTW which region was the programme shown on?

BBC Radio 4 - Chapter 3