Site bans bypassed by changing employer

The same person comes back a month later with a different trailer and a different consignment note, and goes through the gate without a single warning. Security does not recognise them, because a different shift is on the gate by now.

Why a ban on the company or the vehicle is not enough

A ban on the company blocks the wrong people (the whole company because of one driver) and fails to block the right one once that driver changes employer. It only makes sense when the problem lies with the company itself, for example repeated breaches of procedure by the same carrier.

A ban on a registration number stays with the vehicle, and the vehicle stays with the company when the driver leaves, so the ban hits the wrong target. It can be useful in its own right, for a vehicle that is unroadworthy or not authorised, but it does not replace a personal ban. A note saying ‘watch out for this one’ works until the end of the shift at best.

What a ban assigned to the person means

A ban assigned to the person applies to an individual identified by personal details and an identity document, regardless of whom they represent at the moment. At entry registration, TraxSystem compares the details entered with the ban list and shows the operator a warning.

The comparison works on a normalised form of the data, so ‘John Smith’, ‘Smith John’ and the same name in different capitalisation all match the same entry. Normalisation applies only to the comparison, and the data in the database stays exactly as it was entered.

A personal ban also ends in a warning and does not block the gate. The operator sees the signal and makes the decision, because an automatic block would also stop someone with a similar name.

In the TraxSystem price list, site bans for people, entry bans for vehicles and driver warnings make up the Bans and warnings module; the pricing configurator will work out the price of the base together with it.

When a personal ban will not work

A personal ban will not work against someone who gives different details. If identification relies on what the driver says and nobody looks at the document, the mechanism can be bypassed. That gap is closed by the procedure at the gate, meaning checking the document at registration. The system does not recognise faces, so identification is always by personal details and a document.

Ban lists are not shared between sites, so a ban applies only at your site. We have no intention of building a shared database of ‘unwanted drivers’ across companies: it would be processing personal data without a legal basis and without the knowledge of the person concerned. Nor does the system judge whether an entry is justified. Who goes on the list, and for what, is your decision.

How to manage a site ban list

First, decide who may enter a ban. The permission to add a ban and the permission to lift one should be separate. Permissions in TraxSystem are granular, 217 items in 24 groups, so this can be set up precisely.

Every entry needs an end date and a reason. An open-ended entry is usually one that, a year on, nobody will be able to explain, whereas an entry with a date expires by itself. A sentence in the ‘reason’ field lets you judge six months later whether the ban still makes sense.

Keep warnings distinct from bans. If everything is a ban, security stops telling signals apart by their weight and within a month clicks ‘continue’ out of habit.

A site ban is processing of personal data, so agree with the person responsible for data protection on the legal basis for keeping such a list, how long you keep the entries and whether the person concerned is told about their entry.

Questions and answers

See also: A site ban for a driver: how to actually enforce it · The entry log and GDPR: who in the company may see driver data · Driver data at the gatehouse: how long to keep it and what to delete