enforcement of mooring charge

[Cheese]

Licence T&Cs:

Quote

2.3  .....you must also comply with any local restrictions specified in signage which may include mooring time limits and other conditions relating to use of a specific location.

...

7.9 You agree that where we believe you have failed to comply with the Conditions, we may exchange information relating to you and/ or the Boat with third parties who are assisting us in managing the situation such as contractors, mooring providers, individuals or organisations with a legitimate interest or duty in exchanging information about you.

 

[Paul C]

Yes, there's 2 routes I could see this following:

 

1) The OP finds themself with a fine/penalty for non-payment of the mooring charge. No doubt the fine is higher than the original mooring charge, to act as a deterrant. They could choose to not pay the fine/penalty, thus inviting the other party to start legal action (which might not actually occur).

2) The OP is sufficiently convinced about the data-breach aspect which they assume occurred, that they initiate their own legal action against (presumably) CRT in this case.

 

The two are distinct but kind of indirectly related. Also I believe neither of the above issues HAVE been tested in court as yet, thus the legal details of what might/might not happen; or how sound the legal basis that CRT or the local authority is using, is untested. By testing this, in addition to the simple cost saving of not paying for the mooring, this might also 1) nullify mooring costs or fines/penalties for many others, which presumably would need to be refunded somehow, 2) clarify the legal position, 3) oblige CRT and/or the local authority to re-evaluate the framework under which they might charge for mooring, or render it unworkable etc etc

 

The above assumes that they won. If they lost, then while the legal position would be clarified, they would be significantly out of pocket.

[Paul C]

4 minutes ago, Cheese said:

Licence T&Cs:

 

 

4 minutes ago, Cheese said:

2.3  .....you must also comply with any local restrictions specified in signage which may include mooring time limits and other conditions relating to use of a specific location.

...

7.9 You agree that where we believe you have failed to comply with the Conditions, we may exchange information relating to you and/ or the Boat with third parties who are assisting us in managing the situation such as contractors, mooring providers, individuals or organisations with a legitimate interest or duty in exchanging information about you.

 

Doesn't look like a "consent" of data to third parties - the obvious clue being that any form of consent these days (ie post GDPR) needs to have an opt-out; and in fact the default needs to be "no" not "yes" so you'd need to clearly/separately consent to it, eg with a tick box. I am almost minded that on 7.9, the wording "You agree that" at the start of the sentence is superfluous and indeed leads to lack of clarity, because it might make it appear vaguely similar to giving consent.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

9 minutes ago, Cheese said:

7.9 You agree that where we believe you have failed to comply with the Conditions, we may exchange information relating to you and/ or the Boat with third parties who are assisting us in managing the situation such as contractors, mooring providers, individuals or organisations with a legitimate interest or duty in exchanging information about you.

 

Which I quoted earlier but 'aracer' seems to think that C&RT cannot do so under the Data protection laws.

[Arthur Marshall]

There's been a lot of threads in the past about the legality or enforceability of various CRT charges, going right back to furious arguments that ANY mooring fees were illegal and nothing could ever happen to anyone who refused to pay them.  As far as I know, no-one ever had the bottle to try this.  It blew up again over councils charging mooring fees, or CRT doing the same in specific areas, and, again, no-one, however much they rant about it, ever actually does anything but pay up (apart from Tony and his PRN arguments).  The only ones that seem to have been accepted as non-enforceable are those penalties for over-staying introduced a year or two back, although as far as I can remember, no-one has ever come on here and said they got a penalty, didn't pay it, and heard no more.

Lots of blather, not much result. 

Logically, someone owns what you tie up to, they can charge you for it. You can just not bother, like parking in a pay car park and keeping an eye out for the traffic warden, but is it really worth the expense of nervous energy for a few quid? And, of course, if everyone did it, they'd just take the mooring rings out.

[Bod]

I fear the only way to get this answered, is for someone who knows fully what the law is in regards to Data Protection, writes to C&RT asking for justification of C&RT's stance.

Or failing that a chat with a Judge.

 

Bod 

[Cheese]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Which I quoted earlier but 'aracer' seems to think that C&RT cannot do so under the Data protection laws.

Agreed, but he seemed to be concentrating on 7.8 and not 7.9

Edited February 23, 2019 by Cheese
speeling

[Phil Ambrose]

What a waste if energy expended on this thread all for the sake of what? £4.00

Phil

[Graham Davis]

3 hours ago, aracer said:

Which as I already pointed out would be a breach of data protection, because you quite clearly haven't given crt permission to pass on details in those circumstances. They might like to think they get to decide, but legally they don't - that term certainly doesn't give them permission to decide to pass on details for something which isn't an incident involving personal injury or damage to property. Such breaches are taken quite seriously (I've worked in situations handling personal data so know how important complying exactly with the permissions you've been given is - I do wonder if crt is even gdpr compliant if that is their attitude). 

Mooring up along the Racecourse bank and not paying the Mooring Charge is "an incident", therefore there is no breach of the General Data Protection Regulations when CaRT pass your details on to the Council Enforcement agents.
Pay up and stop trying to find loopholes!

[Jim Riley]

The act states we are entitled to a licence if we have a bsc and insurance. No mention of terms and conditions. T&Cs can be ignored.

Rights granted under statute cannot be removed by terms and conditions. So, having a home mooring entitles one not to move bona fide for navigation every 14 days, just to move. CRT are a bunch of chancers. 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Jim Riley said:

The act states we are entitled to a licence if we have a bsc and insurance. No mention of terms and conditions. T&Cs can be ignored.

Rights granted under statute cannot be removed by terms and conditions. So, having a home mooring entitles one not to move bona fide for navigation every 14 days, just to move. CRT are a bunch of chancers. 

C&RT are not saying you cannot have a licence, they are just telling you in advance that they will give all & sundry your personal details if they feel so inclined.

[Jim Riley]

Gdpr is dependant on agreement with terms and conditions though. If they are agreed to under duress......? 

[Paul C]

13 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

Gdpr is dependant on agreement with terms and conditions though. If they are agreed to under duress......? 

No its not - not if they don't need "consent" to hand your data to a third party but can reasonably justify another basis (see post #24).

[Arthur Marshall]

Is agreeing to CRT's T&Cs any different to agreeing those, say, of PayPal or any other site? No one ever reads those either until you wind up in court. Then it's up to the judge to decide if they are valid. Guess who will have the better lawyers... And the T&Cs are mostly common sense. 

The old Spanish proverb "take what you want - and pay for it, says God" applies. Trying to take whatever you want without paying for it not only pisses everyone else off, but you end up just paying in grief instead of cash, usually. 

[Jim Riley]

24 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Is agreeing to CRT's T&Cs any different to agreeing those, say, of PayPal or any other site? No one ever reads those either until you wind up in court. Then it's up to the judge to decide if they are valid. Guess who will have the better lawyers... And the T&Cs are mostly common sense. 

The old Spanish proverb "take what you want - and pay for it, says God" applies. Trying to take whatever you want without paying for it not only pisses everyone else off, but you end up just paying in grief instead of cash, usually. 

Yes there is a difference. PayPal et al aren't governed by an act which entitles one to a licence on production of a bsc and insurance. No more and no less. Those who disagree but still wish to go boating accept the imposed T&Cs under duress. Most of us don't have the wherewithal to challenge them.

They may be common sense, I have no problem with them as "guidelines for boaters" except where they illegally take away rights granted under statute. 

[Graham Davis]

1 hour ago, Jim Riley said:

The act states we are entitled to a licence if we have a bsc and insurance. No mention of terms and conditions. T&Cs can be ignored.

Rights granted under statute cannot be removed by terms and conditions. So, having a home mooring entitles one not to move bona fide for navigation every 14 days, just to move. CRT are a bunch of chancers. 

Totally irrelevant to this thread!
 

1 hour ago, Jim Riley said:

Gdpr is dependant on agreement with terms and conditions though. If they are agreed to under duress......? 

Wrong!

I suggest that before you post with your usual and unfounded anti-CaRT rants you do some research.

[Jim Riley]

As a boater I'm not anti CRT,  just against anyone pushing the bounds of legality, be it boaters or CRT. 

Could you tell me where in the act it says we must agree to T&Cs before we get a licence. 

If they can hand out our info willy nilly why make it prominent in the T&Cs. 

Do you think it right that a charitable organisation should push legal boundaries in this manner. 

Maybe you'll change your tune when you get a boat. 

[Graham Davis]

42 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

As a boater I'm not anti CRT,  just against anyone pushing the bounds of legality, be it boaters or CRT. 

Could you tell me where in the act it says we must agree to T&Cs before we get a licence. 

If they can hand out our info willy nilly why make it prominent in the T&Cs. 

Do you think it right that a charitable organisation should push legal boundaries in this manner. 

Maybe you'll change your tune when you get a boat. 

If you aren't anti-CaRT why are most of your posts against them?
I do not consider that they are pushing the boundaries. You want a boat on their waters you abide by their T&C's.

And then we come to your last sentence where you have to have your petty little dig that I'm not a boat owner.

That has no relevance but you can't help yourself can you?

[john6767]

1 hour ago, Jim Riley said:

As a boater I'm not anti CRT,  just against anyone pushing the bounds of legality, be it boaters or CRT. 

Could you tell me where in the act it says we must agree to T&Cs before we get a licence. 

If they can hand out our info willy nilly why make it prominent in the T&Cs. 

Do you think it right that a charitable organisation should push legal boundaries in this manner. 

Maybe you'll change your tune when you get a boat. 

But step back for the minute and look at this thread.  

 

Worcester council charge for mooring on their land on the river Severn,  I assume no one has any issue with that as any land owner is perfectly untitled to do that on a river, and a very many do.

 

Secondly if you don’t pay said charge, it seems very reasonable that CRT provide the council with your contact details, it seems no different to the DVLA giving your details to a parking company in the case of a car in a private car park.

 

Just pay the £4 if you want to stop there, or stop somewhere else if you don’t want to.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, john6767 said:

But step back for the minute and look at this thread.  

 

Worcester council charge for mooring on their land on the river Severn,  I assume no one has any issue with that as any land owner is perfectly untitled to do that on a river, and a very many do.

 

Secondly if you don’t pay said charge, it seems very reasonable that CRT provide the council with your contact details, it seems no different to the DVLA giving your details to a parking company in the case of a car in a private car park.

 

Just pay the £4 if you want to stop there, or stop somewhere else if you don’t want to.

Seems a pretty reasonable summary (and conclusion).

[Iain_S]

5 hours ago, Jim Riley said:

The act states we are entitled to a licence if we have a bsc and insurance. No mention of terms and conditions. T&Cs can be ignored.

(snip) 

As can payment, by that logic?

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, Iain_S said:

As can payment, by that logic?

Anything can be ignored. Just because something is the law doesn't mean you have to obey it. You just have to accept that there may be consequences. 

As far as the T&Cs go, everyone rabbitting on about CRTs legal obligation to provide a licence seems to forget the bit about the Board having to be satisfied. I presume the T&Cs indicate what will bring about that satisfaction. Not complying leads to dissatisfaction and a court case (which of course you may win). 

[aracer]

10 hours ago, Paul C said:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

 

 

 

 

Given the above, I'd say that the passing of data from CRT to a local authority for mooring enforcement falls under the "Public task" basis; CRT may be non-compliant with respect to informing people of its lawful basis (for example, I believe the T&Cs haven't been updated specifically for GDPR, and might rely on a catch all "this gives consent" where this can no longer be the case, etc etc); and its own documentation. This is not the same as a data breach though.

Except it doesn't, because the link you give applies to the processing of data within an organisation, not the passing of data from one organisation to another, hence it is completely irrelevant to this thread - it most certainly doesn't provide CRT any justification at all for passing data to a local council.

 

10 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Which I quoted earlier but 'aracer' seems to think that C&RT cannot do so under the Data protection laws.

 

My mistake thinking that you were particularly referring to the bit you highlighted, hence why I addressed why you were wrong about that. Well that and because clause 7.9 clearly doesn't apply as that only comes in for a failure to comply with CRT conditions which this isn't, hence I ignored it previously as I thought that was so obvious (given what Cheese quoted I guess I probably need to point out that 2.3 clearly only applies to CRT local restrictions, not those of any third party).

10 hours ago, Bod said:

I fear the only way to get this answered, is for someone who knows fully what the law is in regards to Data Protection

Well from what I can work out I know way more than anybody else on this thread about that, and certainly enough to know that the CRT passing on personal details to a council in these circumstances would be a breach - I don't need to know what CRT's stance is (I suspect from what I've seen and comments on this thread that CRT's stance is to ignore the rules and hope nobody ever dobs them in for it), nor to get a ruling from a judge, the rules are set out quite clearly regarding the need for permission to share data and there is nothing at all in any of the T&Cs quoted which gives CRT permission to share data in those circumstances.

 

I'm curious - has anybody on here telling me I'm wrong about this ever worked directly with data protection in recent times?

9 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

Mooring up along the Racecourse bank and not paying the Mooring Charge is "an incident"

No, it certainly isn't. I note that I've been referring to the terms using the numbering provided by others for convenience, but in the meantime I have read through them myself and interestingly they have changed around this particular point (I suspect due to GDPR requirements). I can't work out how to copy and paste from the T&Cs, but there is a new 7.8 (with the original 7.8 now being 7.9) which makes it explicitly clear that an "incident" is something which involves personal injury or damage to property. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/5962.pdf

5 hours ago, john6767 said:

Secondly if you don’t pay said charge, it seems very reasonable that CRT provide the council with your contact details, it seems no different to the DVLA giving your details to a parking company in the case of a car in a private car park.

As I pointed out in the OP, it is extremely different to DVLA giving out details to parking companies, because in that case there is specific legislation allowing for the passing of details (along with other legislation which enables private parking companies to win cases in court). None of that exists regarding mooring of boats AFAIK - it was not being entirely sure about this which prompted this thread in the hope that somebody else might know more specific details, but certainly assuming the case is the same as with the DVLA passing on details is erroneous. The comments on this thread have done nothing to disprove my suspicions that any penalty notice issued is essentially unenforceable - I suspect council employees are making the same erroneous assumption that they can do the same as with parking, having not realised the amount of specific parking related legislation which allows them to enforce penalty notices.

 

It doesn't seem reasonable at all to me for CRT to provide personal details to a third party which I haven't given my permission for and for which there is no legislation requiring them to pass the details in the absence of my permission. On the contrary, as I keep pointing out, passing on personal information in those circumstances is a breach of the data protection rules.

[aracer]

11 hours ago, Paul C said:

Yes, there's 2 routes I could see this following:

 

1) The OP finds themself with a fine/penalty for non-payment of the mooring charge. No doubt the fine is higher than the original mooring charge, to act as a deterrant. They could choose to not pay the fine/penalty, thus inviting the other party to start legal action (which might not actually occur).

2) The OP is sufficiently convinced about the data-breach aspect which they assume occurred, that they initiate their own legal action against (presumably) CRT in this case.

 

The two are distinct but kind of indirectly related. Also I believe neither of the above issues HAVE been tested in court as yet, thus the legal details of what might/might not happen; or how sound the legal basis that CRT or the local authority is using, is untested. By testing this, in addition to the simple cost saving of not paying for the mooring, this might also 1) nullify mooring costs or fines/penalties for many others, which presumably would need to be refunded somehow, 2) clarify the legal position, 3) oblige CRT and/or the local authority to re-evaluate the framework under which they might charge for mooring, or render it unworkable etc etc

 

The above assumes that they won. If they lost, then while the legal position would be clarified, they would be significantly out of pocket.

Thanks you - finally a post which is at least slightly helpful (along with your following post which shows that unlike most on here you have some understanding of data protection).

 

However I'm going to kind of disagree with your conclusions  - strangely from what I read about when an incident did happen it seems the penalty charge is the same as the original mooring charge (I suppose that does suggest they know it is different from parking). Having thought about it more fully since the OP, I'm feeling fairly confident that it would be a case the council couldn't win if they took it to court - I'm basing that on the arguments used in parking cases around the formation of a contract, given that the only claim could be for breach of contract, and that the legislation which allows parking companies to get around that doesn't exist. However such a loss in court wouldn't nullify any mooring costs for anybody, simply show that they couldn't enforce the contract in those particular circumstances - there certainly wouldn't be any need for them to refund anybody (such a judgement would also be in a court which wouldn't set any sort of precedent).

 

I'm not entirely sure about the details here - thankfully it's not something I have ever had to deal with - but I don't think there would be any need for the subject of the breach to initiate legal action. My understanding is that it is something which could simply be reported to the ICO for them to deal with - and they would because they take these things extremely seriously!

 

Anyway, given most people seem to have got the wrong end of the stick regarding my friend's intentions, I should admit I was a little mischievous - hashtag added to the end to deliberately imply I was up to no good! It's all hypothetical, I have never moored there, and I doubt I ever will (though I'm almost feeling tempted just to see what happens). However also prompted by needing to go into town on a nice day and thinking it would be nice to have an excuse for a cruise and looking up the mooring charges - the thing is, whilst it might only be £4 to moor, if I took my car instead and parked in the car park it would only cost me 60p for an hour (in reality I know plenty of nearby places to park which are free). The car might take up less space and be less polluting than the boat, but it strikes me that taking the car would be contributing to congestion and danger on the roads which taking the boat wouldn't - I doubt very much that anybody would smile and wave at me when I was in the car. TBH if it was only £1 I probably would moor there and pay the charge, but £4 to go shopping is way too steep.

[frangar]

20 hours ago, john6767 said:

 

I doubt much will happen as I suspect no one comes a checks in Worcester.  At the end of the day it is £4 that we are talking about here, and if you don’t like it you can use the CRT pontoon at Diglis or go up onto the canal.

They do check....I was the only boat there a couple of years ago....just moored up...when a knock on the cabin side and a chap in full parking warden outfit with a portable ticket machine etc asking for the fee...still that was better than Windsor where I hadn’t even tied up before I was asked for the fee....

 

edited to add

ive only been been able to find space on the pontoons once...they seem to be less well policed and attract the permanent mooring types....

Edited February 24, 2019 by frangar