Annual report
Purpose: To enable the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) to identify people who have sold more than six motor vehicles in a 12-month period and are not registered as motor vehicle traders.
Year commenced: 2007
Features: Data transferred monthly by online transfer.
MoT disclosure to MED: Ministry of Transport (MoT) provides MED with the full name, date of birth and address of all individuals or entities who have sold more than six vehicles in a 12-month period.
MED disclosure to MoT: MED provides MoT with the full name, date of birth, address and trader unique identifier of new motor vehicle traders so that these traders are excluded from future programme runs.
2011/12 activity:
| Match runs | 2 |
| Records received for matching | 4,808 |
| Individuals or entities of interest identified | 139 |
| Notices of adverse action sent | 139 |
| Successful challenges: Entities: registered under another name | 4 |
| Entities: primary purpose not financial gain | 31 |
| Entities referred to the National Enforcement Unit | 0 |
| Registrations as a result of notices of adverse action | 22 |
| No response to letters | 82 |
Commentary: MED restarted this programme in May 2012. It was placed on hold about two years ago due to limited staff resources. Since restarting the programme, MED has refined its business decision processes, resulting in a reduced number of notices of adverse action.
Many of the letters result in no response. For these cases, MED monitors to see if selling activity continues, and may take further action.
Compliance: Compliant.
| Information matching provision | Motor Vehicle Sales Act 2003, ss.122 and 123 |
| Year authorised | 2003 |
| Programme type | Detecting illegal behaviour |
| Unique identifiers | Motor vehicle trader file number |
| On-line transfers | Yes |
System description
Each quarter, Ministry of Transport (MoT) sends MED, by encrypted online transfer, a file of all individuals or entities who have sold more than six vehicles in a 12 month period. MoT maintains a record of registered traders (through MED providing monthly registered trader updates to MoT) so that transfers to MED exclude individuals or entities already registered as Motor Vehicle Traders.
MED manually compares the MoT data with its Motor Vehicle Traders Register to identify unregistered individuals and companies. Before MED issues a s.103 notice to an individual[1] whom it believes should register as a motor vehicle trader, it requests the following additional information from MoT in relation to each vehicle:
registration plate number
VIN and chassis number
details of sale/transfer of ownership (e.g. name and address of seller and buyer)
odometer reading.
If following the review of the extra information received, it appears that the individual or entity should be registered, MED sends a s.103 notice (notice of adverse action) requesting registration within 10 working days, or an explanation to the Registrar about why the individual or entity does not need to be registered. Failure to respond to the notice may result in a referral to the Registrar's National Enforcement Unit for possible prosecution under the Motor Vehicle Sales Act.
MED also access the file from MoT to conduct manual look-ups if a complaint is received. The person who performs the information matching programme is authorised to perform the look-up on behalf of all other investigating staff. A privacy register is maintained to record details of each access to MoT data for complaints purposes, and a summary report of this activity is provided to this Office.
Historical activity
MED's first match run, initiated in May 2007, was abandoned because on-going resource issues meant that the data supplied by MoT became out of date. The results of the subsequent match run initiated in May 2008 are included in the 2008/09 statistics.
This programme was inactive in 2010/11.
| 2008/09 | 2009/10 | |
| Match runs | 4 | 3 |
| Records received for matching | 1,647 | 1,603 |
| Individuals or entities of interest identified | 600 | 973 |
| Notices of adverse action sent | 684[2] | 422[3] |
| Successful challenges: Entities: registered under another name | 6 | 3 |
| Entities: primary purpose not financial gain | 393 | 252 |
| Entities referred to the National Enforcement Unit | 0 | 0 |
| Registrations as a result of notices of adverse action | 77 | 5 |
MED Privacy Register - Customs and MoT Data Accesses 2006-2010
| 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | |
| Number of ad hoc searches made - Customs data - MoT data | 6 47 | 0 10 | 0 0 | 0 0 |
| Ad hoc searches that resulted in matching a complaints file record | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Number of s.103 notices sent | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
[1] For administrative convenience, and for the benefit of corporate persons, a notice is sent to the matched entity whether they are an individual or a corporate body such as a company or a trust. The statistics reported for this match include both individuals and other entities.
[2] This includes 84 second notices that were sent during the reporting period.
[3] This includes 114 second notices sent during the reporting period.
