Motability vehicle

Yoga_Cat2

This is a general query rather about a specific PCN.

In a nutshell my question is - Can I inform a parking company that the "driver" of a vehicle is a care provider eg: "ABC Care, Any Street, Xtown"?

I have an adult son and daughter who are both severely learning disabled and live in care settings (one is in a residential care home the other in supported living), not with me. I am the registered keeper of my daughter's vehicle as she was still living with me when the Motability contract started. Letters for my son's car are addressed to him, but delivered to me as his DWP Appointee.

For clarity neither of them drive - their paid carers drive their cars.

For the sake of argument assume that if a PCN NtoK is issued I am NOT the driver, as it is only on very rare occasions that I might drive either vehicle.

On a fairly regular basis I am sent parking charge notices for one or other of their vehicles. I pass these onto the care provider, who pass them on to the driver of the vehicle at the time of the contravention. Due to GDPR the care provider cannot be expected give me name and address details of specific drivers. On occasion I have appealed, for instance there was an occasion a PCN was issued for at a pub, but I had a record of a transaction there, so was easily able to get the charge revoked, another time I appealed on the basis that the charge was addressed to my son, but as he lacks mental capacity to deal with a PCN they couldn't reasonably hold him responsible, this was cancelled by the parking company as a "goodwill gesture".

As you will all appreciate, appealing these charges is time consuming and I would prefer not to spend hours of my time challenging these notices when the staff need to remember to display a Blue Badge or simply observe the notices!

My difficulty arises as I am unable to name the driver, and equally if the charges can be challenged I'd rather the carers did not have to pay, on the whole they do a fantastic job, with less pay than they deserve, but the notices come through so regularly, that I shouldn't be dealing with the stress of them.

Any thoughts/suggestions? Thank you :)

Gr1pr

Apart from the actual query, which i believe that you can do, as keeper on that day, the options are also

Plan A complaint about it to the landowner or retail park management company or business etc

Check the pcns for POFA2012 compliance, because those that fail POFA2012 have no keeper liability anyway, and especially because the keeper is not the driver, so are easily appealed on that basis

elsien

My thoughts would be that the managers of the two settings should be telling their staff to get a grip and make sure they are displaying what they need to display.

Have you raised with them that it seems to be getting a bit silly now? (Ex care home manager, for what it’s worth.)

Either that or carry on passing the letters on for the staff rather than challenging it on their behalf. It might make them start being a bit more careful.

Coupon-mad

Well worth a DVLA then ICO complaint about the 'double lock' data processing rule.

Don't think anyone has tested this and it costs you nothing:

You could ask the DVLA if they will flag the file that the keeper lacks mental capacity and to either completely stop (or at least remove from KADOE) handing out this data to private firms because it is 'special category data'. This type of data is considered highly sensitive and carries higher risks to individuals' rights and freedoms.

In this case it causes immense distress to his family and a real fear of bailiffs because he cannot handle Notices to Keeper and it is practically impossible - and an unfair burden - for the family to work out which of a number of (unknown full names and unknown addresses) officially allocated carers may have been driving, many weeks after events.

UK GDPR, the DPA 2018 and the DUAA 2025 all continue to maintain strict protections for special category data. The relaxed 'automated decision-making' rules do NOT apply to special category data like this.

In order to lawfully process special category data, the DVLA must identify both a lawful basis under Article 6 of the UK GDPR and a separate condition for processing under Article 9 and it cannot be subject to automated decision-making.

So this keeper's data is legally protected and should not be supplied under the KADOE link.

Tell them you require the DVLA to flag and 'double protect' this data so what do they propose to do to protect this particular keeper and meet the law?

End by asking the DVLA not to insult you with their 'BAU' template crap and to read the damn complaint properly because you will complain to the ICO if the DVLA fail to protect this individual, who is mentally incapable of replying to Notice to Keepers or naming drivers which are from various care providers.

Thus, the DVLA's usual soft justification to release the data does not apply here and KADOE cannot be used.

I WOULD BE LOOKING TO TRY A TEST COMPLAINT TO THE ICO BUT YOU HAVE TO START WITH THE DVLA FIRST.

See:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/a-guide-to-lawful-basis/special-category-data/

and

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/special-category-data/what-are-the-rules-on-special-category-data/

Yoga_Cat2

@Coupon-mad definitely worth a try, thank you.

My daughter's Motability contract is due for renewal so I can test out with my son and repeat for my daughter.

@elsien I had that conversation about the number of accidents that were occurring with the cars!

Coupon-mad

I think - yes - do the complaint for your son to the DVLA then repeat for your daughter, regardless of the DVLA's excuses.

Then combine both for a major complaint to the ICO, citing the law on special category data and asking the ICO to consider both as a test case against the automated decision-making of KADOE, which the law says cannot be used IN THE CASE OF THIS DATA.

Especially given the fact that (either by choice or due to site location) not all parking firms use the POFA Sch4 wording, therefore there can be no 'keeper liability' legal proceedings right against the keeper so the Article 9 required justification is not there in such cases.

Handing out special category data merely to allow a 'non-POFA compliant' PPC to ask the keeper who was driving (which the DVLA has previously admitted is the rationale in non-POFA cases) does NOT work and doesn't unlock the !double lock' protection on the data of a person who the DVLA know lacks capacity or knowledge to name the driver and whose family - who are usually not the driver because he has different daily carers only known by their first names - should categorically not be burdened just because the DVLA and parking firms 'want' to use the cheap automated KADOE across the board.

One workable remedy here could be to flag this data to switch off KADOE in such cases of keeper mental incapacity and require paper applications only AND only if a parking firm can confirm that they are able to rely on keeper liability in each individual case AND demonstrate a 'legitimate interest' overriding the Equality Act 2010 which protects disabled people from unfair burdens. The DVLA must recognise this and disallow KADOE in these cases, when alerted by family or medical professionals.

That level of EA-crushing 'legitimate interest' will be vanishingly unlikely and rarely exists in private parking. For example, accusing a disabled passenger/keeper of vehicle 'overstay' is immediately illegal under the EA because the law allows more time for daily living tasks.

1505grandad

Perhaps the following may be of interest re DVLA complaints leading to referring to ICA if necessary?:-

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-licensing-agency/about/complaints-procedure

(Obviously do not want to burden the OP with irrelevant procedures).