Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
DVLA
Longview Road
Swansea
SA6 7JL
Telephone
Fax
Textphone
HMP Britain
Email
[email address]
Website
www.direct.gov.uk/motoring
Your Ref
Our Ref
FOIR 1692/09
Date:
05 October 2009
Dear Sir/Madam
Freedom of Information
We are writing in response to your request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA) which was received on 29 September.
You wrote:-
I have recently seen a television advertisement from Car Spotters. This
service allows a customer to send a text from a mobile phone, and for a fee of £3, it will
send you information on the car such as its year of manufacture, date of first register,
its acceleration performance, top speed etc. It is my understanding that this service uses
a local database to establish these figures. That is to say, the service interrogates a
database supplied by the DVLA and held on the service provider's computers and not a
database held at the DVLA.
You requested :-
1. What is the nature of the database used by this and other such services?
This information is held. This is an anonymised set of vehicle data that contains no personal
details. The data is supplied to five companies who use it to provide products to a range of
companies usually in addition to data supplied by the police, the motor insurance industry
and car valuation data.
The data is used to ensure correct identification of vehicle replacement parts or products
including brakes, exhausts, batteries and spark plugs. In addition, the data is used to power
customer websites, e.g. insurance companies, so that members of public enter their car
registration and the vehicle fields are pre-populated. Also, for a potential buyer to check the
history of a vehicle that they are thinking of buying to make sure it hasn't been cloned or
written off, check the mileage, value, etc.
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Part of the product advises when there has been a keeper change or the number plate has
changed as a result of a cherished transfer. This allows companies to identify that there has
been a change but does not give the personal details of the keepers.
2. What are the licensing terms?
This data is supplied to five companies who are allowed to use it for reasonable enquiries as
described above. The data is sold at a cost recovery level of £80,000 per annum.
3. Please send me a copy of the database(s) sold to these services.
This information is exempt by virtue of Section 21(2)(a) of the FOIA. That is, it is reasonably
accessible to you even though it is accessible on payment. The anonymised information sold
to these companies is a commercial product and is not available free of charge.
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-
commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use,
for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.
Most documents supplied by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency will have been
produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the
arrangements for re-using Crown copyright on the Office of Public Sector Information
website at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm.
If you are unhappy with the decisions made by this Agency in relation to your request, you
may ask for an internal review. If you wish to complain, you should write to
[DVLA request email] quoting the above reference number.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Please see attached details of the
complaints procedure and your right to complain to the Information Commissioner.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact us at the postal or e-mail address,
quoting the reference above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information
DVLA
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