NCCLols: When personal data is not 'personal data'

About a year ago I revealed that enforcement of the Workplace Parking Levy would involve officers in a vehicle equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) tech touring the car parks of Nottingham, recording the registration numbers of cars parked there to determine how many spaces are being used by people working there. I suggested that this was a bit dodgy because, arguably such activity should be registered under RIPA and it would mean shunting quite a lot of individuals' personal data around which implies certain obligations. As the WPL rules do not include spaces used by Blue Badge holders i.e. people with disabilities, this includes what is defined as 'sensitive' personal data which requires explicit consent for processing. In other words, from a data protection point of view, this is some heavy shit.