follow on from foi-4519-1718 - Is it legal or illegal for drivers to use hand held credit card machines. (please do not confuse legal / illegal with compliant / non compliant) Please note that fixed machines in the rear of Taxi`s are not 100% reliable is it illegal to ban a hand held credit card machine that a driver could use as a backup. I did not ask about TFL regulations but about legal/illegal. To clarify - If I use a hand held credit card machine (as many drivers are doing) am I committing an illegal act? In Alex Moffat`s email 19/10/2017 he states "unapproved equipment installed or carried and used in a licensed taxi may lead to the suspension of the taxi licence" Please advise how many taxi licenses have been suspended due to credit card equipment being unapproved?

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TfL Ref: 0094-1819

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 9 April 2018 asking for information about hand held credit card machines.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. You asked: Please advise how many taxi licenses have been suspended due to credit card equipment being unapproved?

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.

We have estimated that it would exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your current request. This is because we would need to review all driver records in order to identify and extract this information as our current system only allows us to report on live suspensions, of which there are currently none. However we are currently looking at how we may be able to resolve this technical IT issue.

Rather than suspending or revoking a taxi vehicle licence we would generally issue an unfit notice in the first instance if a taxi was found to have unapproved equipment installed during a roadside inspection. This prevents the vehicle from working until it has had an inspection and confirmed that it complies with regulations.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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