Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens ‘wrongly fined for driving in London Ulez’
www.theguardian.com
Exclusive: EU states accuse TfL of huge data breach over clean air zone penalties, with many given to compliant vehicles

The Guardian can reveal Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by five EU countries of illegally obtaining the names and addresses of their citizens in order to issue the fines, with more than 320,000 penalties, some totalling thousands of euros, sent out since 2021…

Since Brexit, the UK has been banned from automatic access to personal details of EU residents. Transport authorities in Belgium, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands have confirmed to the Guardian that driver data cannot be shared with the UK for enforcement of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), and claim registered keeper details were obtained illegally by agents acting for TfL’s contractor Euro Parking Collection. In France, more than 100 drivers have launched a lawsuit claiming their details were obtained fraudulently, while Dutch lorry drivers are taking legal action against TfL over £6.5m of fines they claim were issued unlawfully.

According to the Belgian MP Michael Freilich, who has investigated the issue on behalf of his constituents, TfL is treating European drivers as a “cash cow” by using data obtained illegitimately to issue unjustifiable fines.

Freilich describes the situation as “possibly one of the largest privacy and data breaches in EU history,” according to the article.

Some drivers have even received penalties of up to five-figure sums — for compliant vehicles which had simply not yet been registered. And “some low-emission cars have been misclassed as heavy goods diesel vehicles and fined under the separate low-emission zone scheme, which incurs penalties of up to £2,000 a day.”

Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/424244

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    4·
    9 months ago

    Can confirm. Have been one of the victims. Yes, EPCPLC indeed sends all papers after the deadline has run out with an alleged sending date weeks ago, always illegaly from continental post offices that don’t stamp dates on the envelopes. I’ve contacted those post offices and inquired their normal run times to be in the one to three days period, and not six weeks like the alleged dates would suggest.

    When I googled them for the first time, their homepage was in the middle of the first result page. All the other results were fraud warnings. Respectable and established websites had articles on them recommending involving a lawyer before contacting them, as the company was “known to be not trustworthy”, a position that I can support to 100%.

    I am still thinking of file a fraud case against them, and of there is a call for witnesses against them, I surely will support the agency that is doing the case against these fraudsters.