The Department For Transport's Demonstrations Project
As part of the process of developing road pricing policy, the UK Government, though the Department for Transport, intends to undertake a programme of demonstrations and supporting research to provide information and data that will allow emerging TDP strategies to be tested and validated.
The objectives for the Demonstration Programme are:
- To investigate and prove the options for practical and cost-effective TDP charging systems.
- To gain improved knowledge and understanding of critical elements in the systems and business processes that would be required to apply TDP charging on a national scale in an affordable way.
- To inform our thinking on the best way to protect the privacy of road users and to ensure a system that works reliably and fairly.
The Department for Transport called for proposals for the Demonstrations Project and, having considered several proposals, have selected four consortia to implement the first phase of the Demonstrations Project.
We at the Trusted Driver Consortium are worried that the Department for Transport is not properly examining the privacy issues within the Demonstrations Project.
Their invitation to tender documents did not ask for proposals to study privacy enhancing technologies; on the contrary, they specified the use of "charge records" which explicitly link journey details and driver identity.
If privacy issues are not considered from the outset then there is a real risk that the Demonstrations Project will deliver road pricing proposals with inadequate privacy, with the consequence that it will be politically impossible to implement TDP road pricing schemes.
We call on the Department for Transport to:
- Examine privacy enhancing technologies, including Trusted Driver, within the Demonstrations Project.
- Conduct a formal Privacy Impact Assessment as a separate program within the Demonstrations Project.
Useful Links...
Congestion and road pricing Department for Transport's road pricing website.
Road Pricing Feasibility Study Department for Transport's investigation into road pricing.
Road Pricing Demonstrations Project Explains the Department for Transport Demonstrations Project. Includes Invitation to Tender documents.
The Eddington Report Executive Summary
Intelligent Transport Systems and Services the Technology Strategy Board program and competition document
Talks presented at the Privacy-Friendly Fraud Detection and Payment Enforcement in Road Charging Schemes conference run for the DfT by the Enterprise Privacy Group. See the paper on the German road pricing scheme.
Privacy Impact Assessment Handbook from the Information Commissioner's Office
Privacy by Design Report from the Information Commissioner's Office
Privacy Engineering Whitepaper from the Cyber Security KTN Privacy Special Interest Group
Road Pricing 2008 conference - includes a section on the DfT's Road Pricing Demonstrations Project.