§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to introduce legislation to prohibit the collection of data in a form that can trace or monitor the movements of a particular vehicle; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter Bottomley[holding answer 20 March 1989]: Surveys of vehicle movements provide useful statistical data for transport planning and analysis. No such data on individual vehicle movements collected by the Department are divulged to third parties. Computerised data would be subject to the Data Protection Act and all statistical data are dealt with under the Government statistical service code of practice published as Command Paper 9270 in June 1984.
The Road Traffic (Driver Licensing and Information Systems) Bill would provide that the Secretary of State could not require information to be furnished to him in a way which enabled him to identify individual drivers of motor vehicles equipped to receive driver information.