Safe Speed Forums

I've just sent an FOI request to the DVLA, basically I asked for the colour, engine size, registration date and a couple of other fields from the log book for all vehicles of a particular make and model that have a chassis number starting with a particular 3 digit string. I asked for the results in the form of raw data such as a CSV file or Excel spreadsheet. I specifically pointed out that I did not want the chassis numbers or registration marks. I expect there to be be about 1000 records returned, since the chassis code I used only applies to grey imports.

I know I'm not the only person here who works with databases from time to time, but does this request seem particularly complicated, I would have thought it could be done with a single SELECT statement, then cut&paste the results into an email or .txt file.

According to the DVLA, this will take 24 working hours at £25 an hour and thus will cost over £600 making the request exempt from the FOI act and they aren't going to do it.

Are they taking the piss or what?

A proper database admin could have that info out of the database and on a disc in 10 minutes.

What do you think?

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Prepare to be Judged

Development DBA:
10 minutes to write and run request

Architect:
2 hours to determine there are no architectural impacts

Project Manager:
4 hours in "project start up", setting up a project team with all of his / her cronies in it.
2 hours to try to understand the request before saying "this is too technical for me, I will use your estimates" and then promptly try to bring in an external consultant to help with the work.
2 hours to develop a plan in MS project.
2 hours resource levelling the plan in MS project.
2 hours that cannot be accounted for, project managers call this contigency.

Business Analyst:
2 hours to read the request.
1 hour at the Contingency & Delay public house with the project manager
1 hour to write the request down again in another document

QA:
2 hours to write test scripts
2 hours to validate test scripts
1 hour to create test data
1 hour to run test scripts on test data
2 hours to check test output against test data

Operations:
1 hour telling the project manager that they should have been engaged in the project start up meeting.
1 hour deliberation as to when the extract can be run against live data

So there you have it, 28 hours and 10 minutes.

[this is not just the DVLA ... any large organisation with processes and policies in place!]

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Handy - reminded me of this

Lum - I suppose it is possible that their DBs are not structured to allow searching on those parameters. The other thought that occurs to me is that the model information on imports is not always correct, my Impreza is just listed as a Subaru 4 door saloon for instance. Though probably they just do not want to do it and you cannot prove they are making up the cost.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

It smacks to me of make it difficult and expensive and you'll just give up. Like unjust NIPs

They make enough money out of us to offset any cost they ostensibly incur for such an infrequent request so what about serving us - the public?

Oh yeah, sorry. Thought I was back in America there for a minute.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I didn't ask for a very specific model, just Subaru Legacy. Its the first 3 digits of the chassis code (BE5) that identify the specific model I'm interested in.

The reason for this is I need the info for an upcoming court case where I need to prove the rarity of the car in the UK, so it's somewhat important.

I've replied asking for a review, as the FOI act states I'm entitled to do, and I will be taking it to the information commissioner if they don't sort it out.

Say Lum, I just noticed. Aren't you close enough to go knock on their door every day and be a nuisance

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Can you ask them for all subarus or all legacys and do the select yourself? If you do an order by chassis no then in the spreadsheet they'd be altogether and could cut and paste them into a separate sheet.

A subaru owners' club might already know this so it is worth asking them too.

In any event keep all correspondence to show that you have tried to prove how rare the model is.

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Prepare to be Judged

I doubt the DVLA will release the list of chassis numbers as that's just asking for someone to go around ringing cars.

And yes, it was the UK Legacy forums where I got a breakdown of what the chassis numbers mean, namely:

B = Legacy
E = 3rd gen (98-03) Saloon
5 = Twin Turbo (or possibly just turbo if it's a 1st gen)

I build databases all the time and have worked with one from a very large organisation who supply systems to most schools in the UK.

Despite the 400 table structure of one of their databases it took less than an hour to figure out the structure and then create a query to pull the necessary data out.

In summary - they are taking the piss, and any excuse of protocols is just that, an excuse.

Haha just read the link, so so true

Here is why they claim it will take so long..If I didn't need this information so urgently, I'd be laughing my head off right now.

I've replied asking them to search WHERE Make="SUBARU" AND Chassis_no LIKE "BE5%"; and pointed out that this is probably easier for them since they have to search on chassis number every time the police find a ringer.

I was joking, THEY are extracting the Michael!



on a semi-serious note, are there any comparative measures you can use to show the relative rarity? A search on auto-trader looking for how many are on sale, perhaps? A statement from importers who deal in this kind of thing?

Autotrader finds 5 cars (you have to type "twin turbo" in the keywords box to reduce the number of found cars)

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

haha - if it takes that long to create a fucking query on 2 fields(!!!!!!) then I suddenly see how the incompetent fools at the high end of politics and IT manage to make so many government funded IT projects run into the billions in initial cost and over-spends!

If their databases have been designed so poorly as to potentially struggle on such a small query being run then they might want to consider changing IT supplies (OTRComputing would be happy to step in )

Well, you've already blown off one hour just considering the request. Additional impacts (that would be subject to costly analysis) would be:

1) Could the information requested be used in a way that would contravene the data protection act. According to the act, personal data may only be used for "the specific purposes for which it was collected". If your use is not defined ap apriori, it would be illegal to use it. Furthermore, data must not be disclosed to other parties without the consent of the individual whom it is about. So it depends on whether data about a person's car is "personal" or not. Deciding that costs hours.


2) Security. Could the information be used for illegal purposes? Deciding that costs hours.

3) Writing the program to extract the data. They will have access controls. No-one will be able to run off an ad hoc report, because they are afraid of the repercussions, especially lately. There will be config control and testing to go through (as someone else noted).

When I worked on a system comparable to the DVLA's, I wouldn't let anyone near the part of the system I ran, for any purpose, unless it was cleared from the top, and to get clearance from the top, you need all the other stuff I mentioned above.

Only if they wanted to. However, they CAN send open databases through the post...

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

Well lets see, I'm after the following fields

Colour - oh no! some Legacies are red, armed with this information I'd better spray mine red before I ring it.
engine size - Subaru only make 3 engines, this is hardly going to narrow it down much
date of manufacture - the results of this query will show me a range of dates between oct 98 and aug 2003. No really, it's common knowledge that BE5s were only made in this time frame.
date of registration - this is the most interesting one of the bunch, armed with this info I can work out how long cars tend to be used for in Japan before they are given up upon and exported. hint: it's typically 3 years, everyone knows this.
country of origin - this should be Japan in all cases, I may find cars from other countries which will be interesting if I do, but really who cares.

I really can't see how any of that info could help me commit something criminal. All the info is out there in the private sector anyway (eg. insurance companies, also every parts dealership in Japan will have all that info except for date of registration in the UK, as will every Subaru dealership in the UK)

In any case, they haven't even suggested that the reason for the cost and delays is down to security, just that it will take 6 days to design a SELECT statement and run it.

If you're going to claim security analysis counts towards the cost then the FOI act is basically worthless as any government department can use that excuse.

I also find it hard to believe that they don't have the facility to run reports on their database, what happens if they need to do an identity check, I mean yeah they charge something like £18 for the privilege but that's a lot less than £600

Maybe I should just get a train to Swansea and look under the seats for laptops?

Surely it would only require a "scan of the entire database" if you were searching on something an un-indexed field?
The chassis number would be indexed, would it not? I mean, that's the primary key...?
So it might have to look through every record with chassis number beginning "BE5", but not the entire database.

You could ask "how many chassis numbers do you have in your database beginning with BE5?" - that would only use an indexed field. ("SELECT count(chassis_number) WHERE chassis_number LIKE 'BE5%'" or similar)

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Andrew.

I wouldn't have thought the data protection act would apply anymore or whether it would make any difference to personal data being used. This government and its departments have dished enough out already for free.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.