Followup story - Parking lot owners risk losing database

The Star has a followup article to a piece I wrote about earlier (see blog entry):

Parking lot owners risk losing database

Limits to collecting fines, minister says
Contracts could be cancelled if abused

ROB FERGUSON AND ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU

Parking lot owners who use a government database to track down and harass motorists over private parking tickets risk having their access cut off, Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar says.

While the government has signed agreements with parking lot operators allowing them to pay an average of $10 to search a database for each licence plate, there are limits on how persistent operators can be in efforts to collect unpaid fees.

"We will enforce those agreements to the teeth," Takhar said yesterday at Queen's Park.

Yesterday's Star also has the following story, on the same topic:

Sorry, says parking firm

Debt collection policy to be reviewed
Aggressive phone calls sparked furor

KERRY GILLESPIE
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

The parking firm that sparked a storm of controversy over the aggressive way it collects unpaid tickets has backed down.

Just two days after a story in the Star, Imperial Parking announced it will conduct a full review of its debt collection practices, which have included people being called multiple times a day, for months on end.

I had an interesting conversation with a process server on the plane back from Winnipeg and was intersted to hear about the access they have to government databases, such as those from MTO. I think a wider follow-up would be in order, looking at what private sector firms have access to revealing personal information from public sector sources.