The capital city’s public transport authority has issued a blanket revocation for hundreds of taxi operators that were wrongly issued with congestion charge or Ulez penalties following data upload glitch

Transport for London has cancelled hundreds of fines wrongly issued to taxi drivers following an IT error.

Trade body the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) has reported in recent days that it was receiving “hundreds” of calls from its members that had been hit with penalty charge notices (PCNs) for failure to pay charges for driving in the central London congestion area or ultra-low emission zone. These penalties had been issued despite the fact that London black-cab drivers are exempt from these charges.

Following a public campaign led by the representative association, TfL has now issued a blanket cancellation of the fines, with the LTDA advising its members that they no longer need to call for advice or support, but that all penalties will be revoked automatically.

The transport authority said that the fines had been issued because of an “error with a routine data upload”.

“We… apologise for any inconvenience caused,” TfL added.

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The tech issue that resulted in the PCNs comes just a few weeks after Transport for London suffered a cyberattack that compromised financial account data for about 5,000 people. The incident – in connection to which a 17-year-old boy was arrested – also continues to impact digital services, including online Oyster accounts and payments via TfL apps.

In its most recent update concerning the incident, which was posted on 10 October, the transport authority said: “We are currently dealing with an ongoing cyber security incident. The security of our systems and customer data is very important to us, and we have taken immediate action to protect our systems. We identified some suspicious activity on Sunday 1 September and took action to limit access. We are conducting a thorough investigation into the incident, alongside the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre.”

TfL added: “Although there has been very little impact on our customers so far, the situation is evolving and our investigations have identified that certain customer data has been accessed. This includes some customer names and contact details, including email addresses and home addresses where provided.”