Some UK Councils Barred From Using Gov't Vehicle Database 84
Bruce66423 writes "A number of British councils are being banned from accessing the national Vehicle Database system. While sometimes this appears to be due to technical infractions, the banning of some 'permanently' seems to be as a result of more serious misdemeanours. Trust the government? Not a good idea..."
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Parking enforcement is dealt with at local level which is wh they have access in the first place.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure why any local government should have access to the vehicle database anyway. All taxation, etc, is done by national government.
The council I used to work for had access to identify the owners of abandoned cars. We didn't have access to identify fly-tippers or people who might be disposing of trade waste at household sites which I understood would have made that job easier or indeed possible so some of the violations could have been through this kind of temptation or ignorance about the limitations.
Technically it was quite a secure system - access was done from a private, locked room via a dedicated ISDN line whose number was registered with them and then several levels of authentication by users who had had to sign an agreement. They were very strict about the paperwork being up to date so I can believe the comments in the article about some having lost their access temporarily due to not getting the renewal forms back in time.