FOI - vehicle fleet

[enjay]

Has anyone else received this FOI request recently?

 

Dear FOI Officer,

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide for each DVLA-registered road vehicle currently owned, leased or operated by (school name): make and model, colour, full DVLA first registration date, MOT issue/expiry date, and VRM. Spreadsheet/table format preferred.

If (school name) does not currently own, lease or operate any such vehicles, please confirm this.

Kind regards,

 

Our Estate Manager has some reservations about providing the VRM as this could be used to forge V5 documents (and they can't immediately think why anyone would want to know it!).

[3s-gtech]

It absolutely could be used for that - that looks like a vehicle cloning checklist, with an organisation where any tickets and penalties could be lost in the system for months (where the police have to confirm who was driving etc). Don't give them the plates.

[Jawloms]

Where did it come from? An individual or a company?

[enjay]

30 minutes ago, Jawloms said:

Where did it come from? An individual or a company?

An personal email address, but that doesn't mean much with FOIs as even the newspapers use GMail for FOI requests because of better handling of mass emails. The requester didn't identify themselves though.

[enjay]

40 minutes ago, 3s-gtech said:

It absolutely could be used for that - that looks like a vehicle cloning checklist, with an organisation where any tickets and penalties could be lost in the system for months (where the police have to confirm who was driving etc). Don't give them the plates.

 

Don't give them the plates, or don't give them the VRMs? Actually, they don't ask for the reg numbers, only the VRMs. I wonder if they meant the plates and said VRM by mistake...

[NegativeKillDeath]

VRM (vehicle registration mark) are different to VIN. 

 

Interesting ICO document about upholding the DVLA refusal to give VRMs in a FOI. 

 

https://ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/decision-notices/2172663/fs50689632.pdf

 

How different the defense would be when discussing a company owned vehicle im not sure. 

 

[enjay]

59 minutes ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

VRM (vehicle registration mark) are different to VIN. 

 

 

I know that, I'm now wondering if the requester meant to ask for the licence plate / reg number rather than the VRM. It seems odd they haven't asked for those!

[NegativeKillDeath]

5 minutes ago, enjay said:

 

I know that, I'm now wondering if the requester meant to ask for the licence plate / reg number rather than the VRM. It seems odd they haven't asked for those!

The VRM is the number plate.

[enjay]

15 minutes ago, NegativeKillDeath said:

The VRM is the number plate.

 

 Ah okay, the Estate Manager thought they were asking for something else.

[enjay]

So, back to the original question now I know what a VRM is! Is there any reason not to share this information? It's nothing you can't find out by looking in our car park anyway then searching the vehicles on DVLA's website.

 

The document you linked is interesting, but I can see why DVLA refused to provide a private citizen with that information; in that scenario it is for the Police to request it. I've done a bit of Googling, and found the response from a Government agency who got word-for-word the same FOI request recently.

[NegativeKillDeath]

I had a look at this and the only 2 exceptions that might be relevant are the one where the data might link to a living person and the one where the info is already publicly available. 

 

The former probably doesnt count as the vehicles will be registered to a company. The latter covers make and model, colour, full DVLA first registration date, MOT issue/expiry date, but you would need to provide them the VRM and then they can look up the rest.