FOI Request - Review of 101003785390 Council Owned Vehicles

Request 101003800335

Review of 101003785390 Council Owned Vehicles

Please may I ask for a review of your decision to withhold the data I asked for (VRM’s) in my FOI request? The vehicles are owned by a company rather than a private individual.

This information would be used for a searchable database to help prevent and detect crime by the public & enforcement officers.

See Page: 11/56 & 12/56  - Examples of misleading actions
(England, Wales & Ireland are working on a similar guide)
https://www.scotss.org/cars/SCOTSScarsalesguide.pdf

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)
https://www.asa.org.uk/news/selling-used-cars-advertising-ex-fleet-vehicles.html

Response 23-06-2025

Following your request for a review (our ref: 101003800335) of your Freedom of Information (FOI) Request – Council Owned Vehicles (our ref: 101003785390), a review meeting was held on 16th June 2025. In attendance were the Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer, Fleet Services Manager, Solicitor, and Information Co-ordinator.

Your FOI Request (101003785390) from 9th May 2025 was discussed.

We uphold our original response and maintain that details such as vehicle registration numbers can be utilised in the cloning of vehicles. Therefore this information remains exempt under Section 35(1)a of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Law enforcement, including the prevention or detection of crime. It was noted that this stance would be taken whether the vehicles were owned by private individuals, a company or a local authority. Similarly, the intended purpose for which the information is requested, such as publication in a database or similar, does not change the risk of the information being misused for illegal purposes.

We apologise for not having previously applied the Public Interest test, which Section 35 exemptions are subject to. We do not believe it is in the public interest to put any information in to the public domain that may assist criminals. Furthermore, should there be any issues with our fleet vehicles rendering the vehicles inaccessible even for a short period of time this would negatively impact the Council’s abilities to perform it’s statutory and public duties, which is not in the public interest.