IN THE NEWS
LIVERPOOL FANS SLAM ‘RIP-OFF CABBIES’WHO INFLATE PRICES FOR FOREIGN SUPPORTERS
Liverpool cabbies have praised the work of the city council after an undercover sting at Anfield
brought
another rip-off driv- er to justice. The Liverpool Echo reports that Orlin Angelov Madzharov, 43, was ordered to pay £480 in fines after he was caught trying to fleece foot- ball fans for £20 for a trip from Anfield to Liverpool Lime Street in January. The taxi driver was the latest to be caught out by undercover council officers posing as football
fans in
operations that have been praised by a number of black cab drivers in the city. But a large number offootball fans have got in touch with the Echo with their own
experiences
and said the opera- tions must continue. One of these was South African Liver- pool fan Evan Lyon who came to Liver- pool to see a match. He said: “I paid £25 from Anfield to the Waterfront. I was in town from South Africa. Just thought that’s normal.” Commenting on the Echo’s
Facebook page, Robbie Shan-
ahan recalledan expe- rience following the Reds match with Brighton as a driver tried to over-charge some away fans. He said: “Walking back to car after the Brighton match I overhead two Brigh- ton fans arguing with black cab with- out his light on who was trying to charge £40 for a £9 jour- ney!
It’s embar-
rassing to our city.” There seems to be a thought that it is often away fans or foreign Liverpool fans who can be tar- gets as they are less aware of how much a fare should be.
Nikki Fenno on Facebook said: “A black cab driver tried to havemy dad off cos he’s got a Belfast accent... not realisingmy dad had lived here for 25 years already and so he was caught out.” It is clear that it is a small minority of cabbies who are attempting these scams - and a num- ber
of honest
drivers have wel- comed the crack- down and punish- ments handed out. Allan Roberts said: “As a black cab driver myself, Iwelcome this crackdown, we need more enforcement
from the hackney officers, these rip-off rats are giving us honest cabbies a bad image.” On Twitter, the Taxi Alliance Liverpool group was equally pleased,
are killing us. “I am a member of Unite and the union is fully on board.” But he said the pun- ishments should be harsher and sug- gested
drivers stating:
“Finally someone has decided to do some- thing in an effort to clean the trade up.” One cab driver who has been working with the Echo to expose the Anfield scams and has always
remained
anonymous, added: “I am over the moon that they are doing this and that it is being publicised be- cause these drivers
caught out once should lose their licence. He said: “I provide a service, if I abuse that position you should take it off me.” Mmmm… Total ag- reement with all the comments set out in this article, especial- ly from the last driver who suggests harsher fines and licence revocation. Anything less is not a deterrent. – Ed.
THIRD DISCLOSURE OF PASSENGERS’ DETAILS BY LEICESTER CITY COUNCIL
Leicester City Coun- cil has mistakenly sent personal details of registered passen- gers to taxi firms for the third time this year. Staff from the coun- cil’s Passenger and Transport Service (PATS) disclosed, in error, private infor- mation to 28 cab firms it has contracts with in January and again in June promp- ting concerns about data security in the de-partment to be raised with senior officials and city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby. Despite this, Leices- tershire Live reports that the names of 17 vulnerable passen- gers who require regular transport to
40
the Leicester-based charity for the dis- abled Mosaic have now been shared with all of the firms holding contracts with the city council rather than the five companies that have a deal tomove them. An email to all the firms was sent out by the PATS team at 5.19pm on August 21. The city council has insisted the data breach ‘poses mini- mal risk’ to the 17 people but Tory city councillor
Ross
Grant said he found it hard to understand how it could occur after he raised the two previous mat- ters at the highest levels in the council. He said: “This is the third such incident of
this nature this year from the same coun- cil department and again the personal information of vul- nerable people has been disclosed to taxi firms that do not need it or want it. “It casts doubts whether the issue of data security is being taken serious- ly if the same issue is recurring again and again. “It speaks of a cul- ture where the council cannot be trusted to keep peo- ple’s data secure.” After each breach the council has stressed taxi firms on contract have agreed not to share data they receive with third parties under threat of pros-
ecution under the Data Protection Act. Cllr Grant
said:
“While our processes seem inadequate we are relying on the processes of small companies to be more robust under threat of breach of contract. “I have never been proactively told by the PATs team of a breach, even though now they regularly are reported to me.” He said: “The situa- tion is completely unsatisfactory. Who is taking responsibil- ity for this recurring problem? “The council’s ap- proach to regular failures is to trust in taxi firms being bet- ter than the council is at keeping data
secure.” One cab driver told Leicestershire Live: “Taxi
firms keep
being sent personal information they do not require and have not asked for. “Then they are threatened with prosecution. “I think we’d all be happier if the council took some decisive action to stop this happening.” A council spokes- man said: “We can confirm an email including the names of 17 passengers was accidentally sent to all taxi firms under contract with the council, when it should have been sent to only five. “The email advised that passengers did
not need collecting on Bank Holiday Monday. “It contained only names, and no other personal data. “This sort of breach posesminimal risk to the individuals and does not need reporting to the Information Com- missioner’s Office under current data protection law crite- ria. “Staff have been reminded of their responsibilities checking
in data
before it is released, and the council has a further programme of data protection training and aware- ness raising planned as part of our ongo- ing work in this area.”
OCTOBER 2018
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