Why Are Private Parking Tickets Out of Control?

And how they’re turning into CCJs—with your personal data helping make it happen

Private parking companies are on pace to issue a record 14.5 million tickets in the 2024/25 financial year—around 40,000 a day—according to new DVLA data.

That’s not your local council handing them out. These are private companies, many using ANPR cameras and hard-to-spot signage, running car parks outside supermarkets, gyms, nurseries and hospitals.

But here’s what most people don’t know: these companies don’t just send you a letter and hope for the best. They buy access to your personal data from the DVLA.

Thanks to a recent FOI request I submitted, we now know this:

The DVLA made over £34 million last year by selling vehicle keeper data to private organisations—including parking companies and debt recovery firms.

Since 2019, that total has hit £124.63 million.

Each time a company requests your data, the DVLA charges them £2.50 per record. That fee hasn’t changed in five years, and the DVLA claims it’s simply to recover costs—not to make a profit.

So What?

This is where things start to feel uncomfortable.

Here’s the pipeline:

1. You park and get hit with a Parking Charge Notice (PCN).

2. The operator requests your details from the DVLA—your name and address, linked to your vehicle.

3. If the address is outdated or incorrect (which can happen frequently*), the letters go to the wrong place.

4. You don’t respond—because you don’t know.

5. They escalate it to debt recovery (who don't bother performing any additional trace/credit check) and then court proceedings.

6. You miss the claim form, and the court issues a default judgment.

7. Surprise—there’s now a CCJ on your credit file, and you’ve only just found out.

*Whilst it is difficult to find up to date information, this piece from 1993 suggests that up to a third of Driving Licenses contained some sort of error along with 25% of Vehicle Registration Documents. The DVLAs own website seems to suggest that 11% of Vehicle Registrations contain at least 1 error.

This isn’t rare. 93% of all CCJs are “default judgments.” In other words, people didn’t even get to defend themselves. And some of those started with parking tickets sent to the wrong address, based on data sold by the DVLA.

It feels like a system that’s been quietly monetised—where your own data is used to take you to court without you knowing, and you’re left to pick up the pieces.

Now What?

If you’ve just discovered a CCJ and had no idea it was coming, it’s not your fault.

It’s not about laziness or avoidance—it’s about a system that’s become increasingly automated, opaque, and stacked against the average person. One where your personal data, sold for £2.50 a pop, can quietly lead to a court judgment against you—without you ever knowing a claim existed.

That’s why I built ChallengeCCJ: To help people who’ve been blindsided by the process, who never got a fair chance to respond, and who want to challenge it—without the stress of learning a new legal language or spending hundreds on solicitors.

But we’re not stopping there.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be digging deeper into the laws that allow this to happen, the justifications public bodies use to share your private information, and asking the bigger question:

Why is a publicly accountable agency like the DVLA acting as a data broker for private parking firms?

Because challenging a CCJ is one thing.

Challenging the system behind it is the next.