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Would you like to know how to use a registration number to trace the owner of a motor car? You may have been told that only the police and the DVLA are able to acquire this information. This guide will explain the rules regarding access to sensitive information held on the DVLA Swansea database.

There are generally two reasons why someone may want to search for the owner of a vehicle. The first reason relates to the actual registration number. A person would like to be reunited with the registration mark of the first car or motorbike they bought.

Can you remember the registration mark of the first car or motorbike you owned?

A registration number could have a special meaning to an individual or a member of their family. Graham Bates sees a car drive past him with the personalised number plate 97 GB. He is interested to get in contact with the owner of the vehicle registered as 97 GB to find out if the owner is interested in selling the number plate.

If your reason for contacting the owner of a car is primarily to discover if they would like to part with their personalised registration, then it is not good news. This would not be viewed as important enough for the DVLA to release information to you. There are however some circumstances when information about a vehicle or the owner may be released. The decision comes down to whether you can show ‘reasonable cause’ to need the requested information.

Information about vehicles and their keepers in Great Britain is held by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) at their headquarters in Swansea. This information is protected by the Data Protection Act.

So in which situation could you have ‘reasonable cause’ to apply for information from the DVLA?

What if you were hit by a motor vehicle and the driver failed to stop? What if the driver of the vehicle did stop but gave you incorrect information?

Both of these situations could suggest you have ‘reasonable cause’ to apply for otherwise protected information for the purpose of tracing the owner of the car that hit you. You would need to have the correct registration mark for the car you wanted to trace in order to correctly start the procedure.

Another example may be if you were the victim of a crime which the police did not want to investigate. Some fraud cases are not regarded to be important enough to investigate, especially when the crime only occurred because of the victims own foolishness. If you happened to obtain the registration number of the fraudsters vehicle you could attempt to get hold of the vehicle owner information from the DVLA.

If having read this information you feel you may have a genuine reason to request information about a vehicle, the correct procedure is to fill in DVLA form V888 – Request by an individual for information about a vehicle.

DVLA Form V888 is available for download from the official website of the DVLA. Just search one of the major search engines for the term ‘DVLA form V888′.

Please remember, you are not supposed to use this form to trace the owner of your ideal personalised registration plate. That would surely not be classed as ‘reasonable cause’ to release such confidential data into the public domain.

The author helps UK motorists navigate their way through often complicated DVLA systems and procedures. He provides help and support on all aspects of personalised number plate transfers. His latest thoughts and ideas are published every week on the number plates blog.

Nov052010

Tags: autos, cars, motorbikes, Motorcycles, motors, number plate, registration plate, vans

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