Toyota announced another recall today.

I wrote about car recalls last year. Car manufacturers don’t have ownership details of all cars sold and, in the event that a safety issue arises, needs to get that data from vehicle licensing authorities.

Access to this data would normally be prohibited under the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 but was previously facilitated by a set of regulations published by the Department of Finance. The Data Protection Commissioner criticised the unqualified access provided under those regulations and sought their review. I don’t know whether the Commissioner’s comments influenced the Department of Finance, but in 2005 a new set of regulations were published which removed the reference to car manufacturers.

Therefore, in so far as I can tell, the law no longer provides for the provision of car registration data by vehicle registration authorities to car manufacturers. Unless Toyota is otherwise entitled to that data (and I have argued that they are not), the disclosure by the vehicle registration authorities is contrary to the Data Protection Acts.

• Data Protection