Police will have access to DVLA data (Image: GETTY)
Labour’s new crime laws will make every driver’s personal information available to the police.
Officers will be able to access the data held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) on 50 million motorists under the new Crime and Policing Bill.
Motorists’ names, addresses, date of birth, photographs, endorsements, convictions and relevant medical information that may affect their ability to drive, will all be available to cops.
As it stands, police can only access drivers’ data if they are investigating road traffic offences. But now, the authorities will extend this access to investigations of all offences.
Campaigners have raised concerns (Image: Getty)
The change has sparked fears among privacy campaigners that police may be able to access facial images as part of the personal data collection.
There are concerns that facial images could then be cross-referenced using facial recognition software with other databases.
Madeleine Stone, Big Brother Watch’s senior advocacy officer, said: “It’s disturbing to see the Government is reheating the Conservative’s abandoned plans to grant all police forces access to our driving licence photos, opening the door to the creation of a massive facial recognition database.
“More than 50 million Britons hold driving licences in order to travel and have not given permission for the Government to turn our photos into mugshots. The Bill allows the Government to grant police officers extraordinary powers to identify and track anyone with a driving licence, at the click of a button. Not only would this be an unprecedented breach of privacy, but would also put innocent citizens at risk of misidentifications and injustice.
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Madeleine Stone branded the Government’s plans ‘disturbing’ (Image: Big Brother Watch)
“With powers to ban face masks at protests and the introduction of new categories of warrantless searches, this Bill is stacked with worrying new powers.
“Privacy safeguards are urgently needed, and the Government must abandon any plans to subvert our driving licences into a vast police database.”
However, the Home Office said the claims were “incorrect” and that the Bill would have no impact on facial recognition.