subject: Trace a Car Owner Using the Registration Plate [print this page] Would you like to know how to use a registration number to trace the owner of a motor car? You may have been informed that only the police and the DVLA are able to get hold of this information. This guide will explain the rules regarding access to private information held on the DVLA Swansea database.
There are generally two reasons why someone may want to trace the owner of a vehicle. The first reason concerns the actual registration number. An individual 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 bought?
A registration number could have a special meaning to an individual or a member of their family. Alan Jones sees a vehicle go past him with the personalised number plate 96 AL. He is interested to get in touch with the owner of the car registered as 96 AL 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 find out 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 occurrences when information about a car 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 what situation could you have reasonable cause' to request information from the DVLA?
What if you were hit by a vehicle and the driver failed to stop? What if the driver of the car did stop but gave you bogus information?
Both of these situations may suggest you have reasonable cause' to apply for otherwise protected information for the purpose of tracking the owner of the car that hit you. You would need to have the correct registration mark for the car you wanted to track in order to correctly start the procedure.
Another example could be if you were the victim of a crime which the police did not want to investigate. Some deception cases are not deemed to be important enough to investigate, especially when the crime only occurred because of the victims own foolishness. If you happened to find out the registration number of the fraudsters car you could attempt to get hold of the vehicle keeper information from the DVLA.
If having read this guide you feel you may have a genuine reason to obtain 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 number plate. That would surely not be identified as reasonable cause' to release such sensitive data into the public domain.
