The City of Adelaide replaced nearly 300 parking machines in 2024 with cashless units that require a number plate and issue only digital receipts, prompting questions about how driver data is handled.
The City of Adelaide replaced nearly 300 on-street parking machines across the CBD and North Adelaide during 2024, after the national shutdown of the 3G network left the old machines obsolete, the ABC reported in December.
The new machines do not take cash or print paper receipts. Drivers must enter their vehicle registration and pay by debit or credit card, then choose how to get a receipt: by giving an email address, scanning a QR code, or noting a code to download it later.
Some motorists raised concerns online about what happens to number plate data, where it is stored and who can access it. The council declined to name its third-party data storage provider, citing security reasons.
UNSW privacy expert Dr Katharine Kemp noted that email addresses are commonly used to link information about people across organisations. The report also pointed out that South Australia is the only state or territory without its own privacy legislation, and that local councils are not covered by the federal Privacy Act.
For anyone who parks in the city, the shift is part of a wider move to cashless, plate-based parking, so it is worth knowing what information you hand over each time you pay, whether on the street or in a privately rented space.
Photo: No Swan So Fine / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Centrepoint Car Park, Pulteney Street and Rundle Street, Adelaide.