IS YOUR COUNCIL BREACHING GDPR WITHOUT REALISING?
What I am referring to is the Public Register of licensed vehicles and drivers that all councils have to
keep. Many councils have this readily accessible on line which allows for anyone to check if a vehicle carrying a council issued plate/door livery is a genuine cab. This is such an important public safety matter that it should be enshrined in legislation.
In Brighton & Hove we have been flooded with hundreds of out of town cars from Portsmouth, Chichester, Southampton and now TfL cars (where no one knows what operator they are working under) but mainly from Lewes District council. In fact we would say that most of the Lewes fleet predomi- nantly works in Brighton & Hove - and even some of the hackneys are now creeping back in defiance of the Intended Use Policy that we persuaded Lewes DC to impose.
Yes, this is the result of policy backed by Baroness Kramer in 2015, that private hire vehicles are allowed to predomi- nantly work out-of-sight and out-of-mind of respective licensing enforcement, which can be hundreds of miles away from where they are actually licensed and which has destroyed local licensing control everywhere.
So dear Baroness, if you are ever down this way on the Sussex Coast to dip your toes in the water then let me know. I will give you a tour of the city and point out all the cars which are showing expired TfL private hire licences, that our council cannot touch, which are picking up people. And I will also show you the hundreds of private hire vehicles that predominantly work here without Brighton & Hove controlled CCTV that we have for the safety and protection of the public and indeed the drivers. I will even buy you a stick of rock.
Sorry for the rant but that is how we feel down here...
Out of that group of licensing authorities, it is only Lewes District Council that does not have an online Public Register. So over the last 18 months or so I have applied several times for an updated list of currently licensed vehicles, which I have been sent unhindered and thank you very much. Because Lewes DC has allowed magnetic rear plates/door repeater plates we have submitted nearing 100 reports of Lewes DC vehicles that have violated condi- tions of licensing where these have been removed/not displayed correctly.
So we recently applied for an updated list of licensed vehicles which has always requested the vehicle licence number/ start/expiry dates, vehicle make/model and vehicle
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registration mark (VRM) However, Lewes District Council has now refused to supply the VRM? And the reason for this is that the council considers the registration number of the vehicle to be personal data.
The supplied Public Register allowed us to cross reference VRM’s to identify licensed vehicles but we can no longer do this, which is a shame because it is only the Brighton & Hove licensed taxi trade which is keeping a close eye on these Lewes DC vehicles which is in turn doing the council a massive favour!
Lewes District Council is relying on a ruling made in 2017 where a motor trader had asked various councils for details of licensed vehicles to build up a database (for profit) where anyone purchasing a car could check if the vehicle has ever been used as a cab. Most councils obliged, but one did not and it went to the ICO for a ruling. The ICO ruled (incredi- bly) that the VRM is personal data - I kid you not! Details of the ruling by the Appeal Hearing are Appeal reference: EA/2019/0025.
I asked Lewes DC for a revision of this decision and provided the following:
• Reports of Lewes District Council licensed vehicles viola- tions of conditions of licensing: Lewes District Council licensing has received nearly 100 reports from me of its licensed vehicles which have not complied with conditions of licensing which consists of the removal/absence of vehicle licence identification which is a serious public safety issue.
• I consider that such reports have been extremely beneficial to Lewes District Council licensing because had these not been supplied then the council would have been unaware of such violations of conditions of licensing. It must be noted that these violations still continue and reports are still being provided.
• Public Registers held by other Licensing Authorities: I need to point out that Brighton & Hove city council provides this information on its online public register.
• Chichester, Portsmouth, Southampton and Transport for London also have online Public Registers which we have relied on to identify licensed vehicles by entering vehicle index numbers which instantly provides extremely important information for public safety reasons. Whilst Mid Sussex does not have an online register I have been provided with a full database of the information required. All of which provide the index numbers of licensed vehicles.
JULY 2021
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