Digital parking meters that record the car registration number

Increasingly, digital parking meters require drivers to enter their car registration number. The following comments concern parking spaces operated by private businesses. Here, the question arises as to what extent recording the car registration number is permissible from a data protection perspective.

Number plate data may be recorded and processed when people use parking spaces. However, the data may only be used and retained for as long as it is absolutely necessary for this purpose.

According to the transparency requirement under data protection law and the statutory duty to supply information, the data controller must inform the persons whose data are being processed (the data subjects) in an appropriate manner why the data are being collected, how the data will be processed and how long the data will be stored. This must be done before the registration number is recorded. It must be possible for the driver of the vehicle to decide not to have their data processed, i.e. not to use the car park in question.

In most cases, the car park operator can do this by placing clearly visible information boards outside parking areas where number plates are recorded. If data processing takes place, the data subject can request information from the data controller on whether and what data about him or her is being processed and for what purpose.