Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what threshold applies before police can conduct facial recognition searches against (1) the passport database, (2) the EU Settled Status database, or (3) the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database, in the course of their investigations.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Police forces can currently request facial recognition searches against the passport database on a limited basis in support of the most serious law enforcement investigations.
No facial recognition searches are currently carried out against the EU Settled Status and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency databases in the course of police investigations to identify people suspected of offences.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether police forces can use facial recognition technology to search against photographs from (1) the passport database, (2) the EU Settled Status database, and (3) the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database, to identify people suspected of offences.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Police forces can currently request facial recognition searches against the passport database on a limited basis in support of the most serious law enforcement investigations.
No facial recognition searches are currently carried out against the EU Settled Status and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency databases in the course of police investigations to identify people suspected of offences.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had discussions with EU officials on sharing vehicle keepers' details for the purpose of enforcing driving fines.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Officials of the Department for Transport have had no such discussions on this issue with officials of the EU since the UK fully left the EU.
While the UK was a member of the EU, the UK electronically provided vehicle keeper data to EU Member States who enquired about vehicles who committed certain traffic offences. This was facilitated under the EU Cross-Border Enforcement Directive (CBE). The UK only used the outbound mechanism of CBE, meaning that we responded to enquiries from Member States, but we never sought to obtain the equivalent information from them about their nationals driving in the UK. Since leaving the EU, the UK is no longer obliged to provide vehicle keeper data to requesting EU Member States through this mechanism.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 29 November 2021 to Question 80915 on Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency: Databases, how many drivers have been fined for not providing their correct address to the DVLA in each year since 2015.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The data requested is not available. The police are responsible for prosecuting this offence and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is not routinely notified of convictions as the offence does not attract penalty points on a driving licence.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the accuracy of driver's address records held by the DVLA.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
All drivers have a legal responsibility to ensure that the address on their driving licence is correct. Not doing so is an offence which can be subject to a fine of up to £1000. It is important that drivers ensure that the address held on the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s record is accurate so that they can receive important information, for example reminders when their licence is due for renewal. The DVLA relies on the public to provide accurate information and only becomes aware that an address on its records is inaccurate when it is notified of such.
To help ensure records are accurate, the DVLA maintains a database of suspect addresses which is updated regularly, and places markers on individual licence records where there is information to indicate that the address held is incorrect. No further licences are issued until any issues have been investigated.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many requests for vehicle data were made to the DVLA in the last year for which figures are available; and how many companies (a) had access and (b) were denied access to that data.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
In 2019, the Driver and Vehicle Agency received 25,569,164 requests for vehicle keeper data. Electronic requests were made by 942 organisations, which include local authorities, private parking companies, insurance companies and finance companies. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of those who request data making a paper application. 25 companies were denied access to vehicle data.
Asked by: Eddie Hughes (Conservative - Walsall North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what the timeframe is to enable access to the DVLA database of licences to private sector identity organisations that are not part of the Gov.verify project.
Answered by Matt Warman
The Digital Identity call for evidence, published in July 2019, sought views on how the government can support the development and secure use of digital identities across the public and private sector. A government response and next steps will be published in Spring 2020.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of instances where a driver’s details have been released to a controlled third party by the DVLA in each year since 2010.
Answered by George Freeman
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency routinely publishes information online on who it shares data with and the number of enquiries made. This is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/who-dvla-shares-data-with
The data is available from April 2015 and is updated every three months. Information from before April 2015 could only be provided at disproportionate cost as a scan of the relevant databases would be required to gather historic data.
The DVLA complies with all applicable data protection laws when processing personal information.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many requests for vehicle owner information have been made by overseas enforcement agencies in each of the last five years by country.
Answered by Michael Ellis
As part of the Cross Border Exchange Directive, EU Member States can request keeper or owner details of vehicles from other Member States, to follow up certain road traffic offences. CBE was implemented in the UK on 7 May 2017, the table below shows the number of requests for vehicle keeper information up to 27 June 2019.
| (from 7 May) 2017 | 2018 | (to 27 June) 2019 |
Austria | 15,988 | 30,530 | 8,786 |
Belgium | 7 | 11 | - |
Bulgaria | 1,222 | 2,693 | 1,235 |
Croatia | 218 | 367 | 102 |
Czech Republic | 86 | 2,115 | 1,474 |
Estonia | 7 | 2 | - |
Finland | - | - | 3 |
France | - | 36 | 241,467 |
Germany | 40,124 | 88,362 | 29,388 |
Hungary | 6,169 | 9,861 | 3,636 |
Italy | 13,586 | 58,832 | 21,422 |
Latvia | 13 | 512 | 15,354 |
Lithuania | 1,211 | 3,761 | 5,903 |
Luxembourg | 1,286 | 3,149 | 1,270 |
Malta | - | 2 | 43 |
Poland | 1,697 | 3,816 | 1,310 |
Slovakia | 199 | 408 | 195 |
Slovenia | 86 | 196 | 117 |
Spain | 1,199 | 51,851 | 16,863 |
The Netherlands | 55 | 3,569 | 21,961 |
In addition, the Home Office can receive requests for vehicle information from overseas authorities, through either Mutual Legal Assistance requests or European Investigation Orders. Information on the volume of these requests is not stored within the Department for Transport.
Asked by: Alex Chalk (Conservative - Cheltenham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government plans to introduce a combined form to enable people to notify the DVLA of a change of address for both driving licence and registered vehicle keeper.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is currently improving the way it holds data and the services it provides to customers. As part of this process the DVLA will provide a new service to notify changes of address covering both driver and vehicle databases. As most customers want to notify changes online, the DVLA will focus on delivering a digital service, with other support and assistance available for those who need it.