12 Jun 2007
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) holds inaccurate personal data
on an estimated 7.8 million drivers, according to shadow transport secretary
Chris Grayling.
The MP says the figure, obtained in a written reply to a question he asked in the Commons, 'has worrying consequences for the safety of people on Britain's roads and raises questions about the bigger issue of identity fraud'.
The DVLA says it does not maintain regular accuracy data on its driver database, but it is 'estimated to be 81.5 per cent'. It also says vehicle information is less than 2.5 per cent inaccurate.
Driving licences are regularly used as a form of ID.
'This just adds to a long list of database problems which have dogged this government,' said Grayling.
'If they can't control the DVLA database how do they think they can possibly deal with a national ID database or a national road pricing scheme?'
When I returned my late husband's driving licence together with a copy of his death certificate and a polite letter I received:
The copy of his death certificate, no letter, just a form with boxes. The box ticked was "your application for a driving licence is receiving attention"
My husband had been in computing for 40 years and would have been appalled at both this laxity and insensitivity.
Posted by: Georgeanne Slater 15 Jun 2007
Databases are only as good and as accurate as the data entered by the user (human).
Lets face it, even with all of the logging, auditing and error handling you still cannot program a human being to enter data 100% accurately.
All database systems are flawed as they are written by humans for humans and humans can't even follow instructions. We all do things differently and we always will.
This means that data must be checked, checked again and re-checked and that takes time and money. In today's world of doing things cheaper and faster, there is little room for covering the same ground more than once.
Posted by: Mr. P. Jones 14 Jun 2007
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