Removal of names and details from licence discs

Regular readers may remember the drawn-out campaign on the removal of our personal details from our car windscreen licence discs. However, despite our campaign's success, it seems that, on the basis of a number of incidents, some of which were actually reported in the media, people with contacts can still obtain our personal details.

Eight months ago we featured a letter from Dr Albert Schembri Wismayer who was involved in an insignificant bumper-to-bumper accident. The other driver stopped her car and inspected it for any damage with the help of her passengers. Since no damage was found, they all went back in their car and proceeded to drive away. No information was exchanged, nor was a bumper-to-bumper form filled in, as there was no damage to report.

However subsequently Dr Schembri Wismayer received a call from the husband of the woman who was driving the other car to inform him that they had found some slight damage on the back of their car. On asking the driver's husband as to how he had obtained his (Dr Schembri Wismayer's) telephone number, the reply was "Mhux kulhadd ghandu l-hbieb?" (Doesn't everyone have friends?)

On this occasion Paul E. Galea, assistant chief executive officer, head, Licensing and Testing Directorate, actually responded to our inquiries. He stressed that since the removal of vehicle owners' personal details from the motor vehicle's road tax disc, he had issued specific instructions to his staff that, under no circumstances should information regarding personal details of vehicle owners be divulged to third parties.

However he pointed out that the police, the Local Councils Department, and the Tax Compliance Unit have access to their database for obvious reasons. This makes it even more difficult for Mr Galea to determine where the confidential information has been obtained from.

Moreover, to be fair to Mr Galea, he wrote: "...even though my directorate might not be at fault, I feel that I still owe you an apology for the inconvenience caused as whoever divulged the information must have used our database.

Moreover I want to assure you that we are considering what other measures we can introduce to limit such possibilities to the barest minimum."

However, subsequently I received the following letter:

I find it hard to believe that the Director of Traffic does not have the means at his disposal to trace the employee who abused his position by obtaining and passing on confidential information to a friend.

As an IT specialist, I know that any computer system worth its salt, such as Government computer systems, including those at the Vehicle & Licensing Office, will include an audit trail functionality as part of its security policy. This audit function records everything that occurs to the data of the said system, be it an amendment, entering a new record, deletions and also enquiries.

Most important of all, it records the details of the person effecting the change or enquiry. A simple search through the audit trail, such as a vehicle number search, will result with what changes occurred to the vehicle records. It will list the person or persons who effected the changes and whoever accessed the information, irrespective of whether that person is employed with the Licensing Office, a local council, the Police Department, or any other department for that matter.

With data security being high on the Government's agenda, especially with the Data Protection Act, e-Commerce Act, and the Computer Misuse Act in force, I am sure that this audit trail function would be just one of a number of measures intended to deter and catch anyone abusing the computer system. (Mario Zammit)

On February 18 I asked Mr Galea for his comments on this letter, to no avail. I sent him reminders and copies of this letter on April 15, May 27 and July 8. All I received from the Licensing and Testing Directorate was an acknowledgement on June 2.

In view of what we went through to obtain the removal of our personal details from our windscreen licence discs I find it rather confusing that Mr Galea might think that I am going to give up. Surely he must know by now that "giving up" does not exist in my agenda.

Therefore I must ask him: While bearing in mind that you have evidently received Mr Zammit's letter, featured above, why are you yet again adopting the stance you adopted when we ran our campaign against having our names and personal details publicly displayed on our car windscreens?

Since it is clear that you have the technology to look into the matter and to identify the individual or individuals who are prepared to illegally divulge a car owner's personal details to a third person, why don't you take any action?

We look forward to see some action and to hearing from Mr Galea.