Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

One of the biggest scandals relating to data is the fact the DVLA are selling open access to their database (that your's and mine information). Anyone can buy it if they can provide a good reason. When everyone else has to abide by the Data Protection Act the DVLA is abusing the regulations and possibly human rights. We live in an age of data protection paranoia – remember that story about the retailer who would only speak to the person who owned the clothes and demanded to talk to kids as young as 6, they claimed the data protection act was to blame. How difficult is it to get an information these days because “it may infringe the data protection act 1998’? Unless you are a dubious second hand car dealer with a criminal record who manages a pub car park. Yep, this really is true and no it’s not an April Fool joke. Even Liberty and many consumer groups are concerned. What has been called a “massive betrayal of public trust” and highly unethical should concern us all. Free access to our data – users just have to type in your number plate and they have your full details – to use honestly or dishonestly. Yet trying to get the DVLA to reveal who has access at first proved difficult – no doubt they quoted the data protection act. On the list are many financial services companies, bailiffs, debt collection agencies and numerous clampers! So no one respectable and trustworthy then. One company they sold our data to is Aquarius Security, the management were found guilty of blackmail and given prison sentences. According to a piece in the Times On Line, “Even the Department for Constitutional Affairs, when consulted, told the Mail on Sunday that it was illegal.” After the clamping scams of the 90’s government and authorities had to clamp down on the dodgy traders who saw a chance to make a quick buck. This has opened the door to a number of very legitimate companies who manage car parks using number plate reading technology and thanks to the DVLA, can now grab our data without our consent and send us parking fines. One such company is ParkingEye. They turn up a lot on blogs and the web and aren’t very popular. If using DVLA data is illegal then by default then it’s them that might be getting a fine. Parking Eye take the Big Brother concept to the car parks of many supermarkets like Aldi, Morrisons, Co-op and Tesco. Parking Eye and a number of other organisations manage a lot of car parks for supermarkets and retailers. You may have noticed signs in these car parks warning you about fines for parking over a limit. Or maybe not, as some seem to be hidden or fallen down. If you are just a minute over the time, wham! You get an £80 fine. While one part of the supermarket are trying to win customers and get loyalty the other side is upsetting customer on mass and losing them. Parking Eye turns up on a lot of websites and those supermarkets that contract them would do well to consider the damage they are doing to their customer relationship. It seems that no matter how well managed a business is there’s always some idiot in it who is the weak link. You spend millions on marketing, customer loyalty campaigns, good service and someone in another department blows it. My advice to those in large supermarkets who manage the brand – manage the idiots who employ parking control companies like Parking Eye. I would say to any shareholder in a supermarket ask this simple questions – if every customer you upset with an £80 fine departs your store, given an average spend of £4000, how much are you losing as a shareholder? It’s a lot. According to one website, one club lost 30 members. I know of a case in Wood Green where one customer has dumped Morrisons over a fine from Parking Eye. Cost, potentially £3000. Is it worth it? Several years ago I wrote to all the major supermarkets proposing a clamp to be put on anti-social drivers who park in disabled parking bays. On the clamp was HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE DISABLED? The fines would go to disability charities. How many took up the idea? None. The common reply was “it may upset our customers.” As always it’s the disabled who suffer the most, there are many reports of disabled people being fined. Seems supermarkets are happy to fine disabled shoppers but not those that park in their bay. How ethical is that? Disability charities may like to take this issue up with them. What is going on? Supermarkets may suffer from the odd parking abusers but it’s a small price to pay to keep the bulk of customer happy. And one unhappy customer soon becomes several and then many. So angry were some locals they have started a local boycott of their supermarket. One woman in a store got so upset by the unreasonable fine police had to be called. One driver was fined £80 for being 12 minutes late when shopping with his disabled mum. "My mother has always shopped in the Co-op – it's disgusting. It takes a few minutes to get the wheelchair out of the car and get the chair back in so even going down for bread and milk can take over half an hour." This surprises me of the Co-op as they are so strongly community based. But the reality is that probably no one at the Co-op who’s responsible for the brand knows this is going on. If they did they’d stop it as it’s outside their ethos. Parking Eye may seem like a good idea at the time and I doubt any sensible person in the marketing department would ever hire them, but alas it’s those who don’t understand the importance of keeping customers happy, who do. They try to claim a financial advantage for customers - I can’t see any advantage in fining a loyal customer and then loosing them. An £80 fine vs £3000 a year of shopping? Do the maths. If I was a shareholder in any supermarket I’d be asked some serious questions. As for the public, it’s time they started to ask the DVLA some serious questions too. On the direct.gov website it says about the DVLA, “The law requires the Agency to protect the privacy of individual motorists and to ensure that personal data is used fairly and lawfully”. It isn’t.