I was at the Test Centre (TC) today and I saw a letter informing ADIs that due to some change or enforcement of the Data Protection Act (DPA) they cannot discuss candidates’ test bookings with ADIs over the phone. The pupil has to call and provide certain data as confirmation of identity (this is how I read it, anyway).
Last week, due to all the snow, I had four tests cancelled. In each case I phoned the TC to find out if the test was going ahead and was asked the pupil’s name so that they could register the test as cancelled – that’s the only way the DSA will allow a booking to be changed without the pupil losing the test fee (until it is officially logged as cancelled the test is considered ‘taken’).
Technically, the Driving Examiner (DE) I spoke to in each case was breaking the rules.
So, the only way I could have handled any of those tests last week – officially – would have been to phone the pupil, get them to talk to the TC, and then call me back with the status of the test. Since most of the tests were early morning ones the pupil would still have been in bed, so I would quite possibly have had to go to pick them up as agreed and then get them to call the TC in my presence – meaning a journey in hazardous conditions and often of a good few miles in rural areas, plus further wasted time and money (on top of the lost money from the cancelled test in my diary anyway).
It’s ironic that edicts like this come down from Government departments who appear to specialise in losing huge quantities of highly sensitive data concerning individuals, and yet they employ hundreds of people whose job it is to try and plug every tiny hole of flexibility and commonsense that exists without any problems whatsoever elsewhere.