Monthly journal Parking Review has been the definitive source of news and intelligence on the UK and international public and private parking sectors since 1989.

London's new online appeals service suffers data protection breach

Deniz Huseyin
06 August 2015
 

London Tribunals’ online appeals service had to be temporarily shut down last month after a data protection flaw was discovered by a parking campaigner. The shutdown happened 10 days after the online service switched to a new system when Northgate Public Services replaced Capita as the London Tribunals contractor, appointed by London Councils. 

The data protection breach occurred on 27 July after Edward Williams, a member of parking campaign group NoToMob, accessed the online service to track a case on behalf of an appellant.

Williams found he was able to gain access to the appellant’s home address and phone number after keying in the appeal number, car registration, penalty charge notice number and the appellant’s surname. He phoned a director at London Councils to notify him of the breach. This resulted in the online service being taken down.

When the website went live again the next day, a box requesting a ‘verification code’ had been added to the list of information required. 

A London Councils spokesperson told Parking Review: “After we became aware of a possible security breach of the London Tribunals portal, it was disabled and the situation was investigated before the portal was reactivated. 

“In accordance with our internal data security policy, we are investigating the extent and consequences of any breach and determining what action may be necessary. At this stage the risk is low and the number of people who may be affected is very small. We are unable to comment further while this investigation is ongoing.”

London Councils confirmed that the data breach had been brought to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which said it would investigate the matter.

Edward Williams said he was tracking case details for an appellant and insisted, “I was not trying to do anything clever – it was not a case of hacking the system”. Williams said: “I did not bypass the security settings, I merely entered data which was taken from the online register of appeals, which was in the public domain until a few days previously when the old PATAS website was taken down.”

London Tribunals is the new  name for Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS). The service still supports two separate teams, which have been renamed Environment & Traffic Adjudicators and Road User Charging Adjudicators.

The service has moved to Chancery Exchange, 10 Furnival Street, London EC4A 1AB, with the new hearing centre opening on 13 July. 

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