Parking APP correspondence (FOI)

​Request

My request relates to public comments made in a story about a recently introduced mobile application and appearing in the Jersey Evening Post.

Deputy Edward James Noel is quoted as saying the SMS reminder notifications sent to users of a newly introduced parking app, which cost 10p per message and are enabled by default, were "nothing to do with his department". Additionally, Terry Renouf from Parking Control is quoted as saying "It’s a default setting in the app and as it is not our app, we cannot change it".

Please supply a copy of all correspondence exchanged between Deputy Noel, the Infrastructure Department, Parking Control, and/or PayByPhone Limited, which request that the default settings for the application be changed, and the response from PayByPhone Limited in which they refuse to make the requested changes.

If searching for this information exceeds the maximum time allowed under FoI law, please instead search for emails exchanged between the aforementioned parties and which contain the following words or phrases: "10p", "change", "alter", "modify", "opt", "setting", "default", and "SMS".

If a non-disclosure agreement was agreed between the States of Jersey and PayByPhone Limited, please also supply a copy of that agreement.

Response

PaybyPhone (PbP) is a global parking payment system. When an account is created it can be used in all PbP car parks around the World. The customer account is with PbP and not the parking authority. Individual parking authorities are not able to have different default settings applied to the App.

Copies of correspondence and Minutes are available through the following links:

APP Project Minutes

Parking APP e-mail correspondence 1

Parking APP e-mail correspondence 2

In the spirit of Freedom of Information, as well as providing the attached as requested, it can be noted that since the date of the request, PbP has responded to the email dated 14th September and clarified as follows: highlighted text will be added to each platform around mid-October 2017. This will hopefully make it clear to the customer additional charges will apply for SMS without having to select ‘Learn more’.

Where possible, the Department for Infrastructure will include information in all communication documents and media releases in relation to SMS messages.