London Accused of Wrongly Fining Hundreds of Thousands of EU Drivers

The Guardian reports that "Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens were wrongly fined for driving in London's Ulez clean air zone, according to European governments..."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." Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

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