Software testing results in over 100 parking tickets

Tom Feddor, whose Illinois license plate is “0″ has received more than 100 ticket notices from the City of Chicago, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

A glitch occurred at the Chicago Department of Revenue involving Feddor’s 0 plates being used during tests of ticketing equipment. The error prompted the cascade of ticket notices to land in his mailbox, city officials determined after launching an internal investigation based on calls from the Tribune.

Apparently, the City of Chicago used Feddor’s license plate number to perform tests on their electronic ticket issuing system:

It turned out that some city parking-enforcement aides punched in 0 when testing their electronic ticket-issuing devices, Revenue Department spokesman Ed Walsh said. Officials weren’t aware there was a 0 plate or that Feddor was receiving tickets, Walsh said in response to the Tribune inquiry.

“The test violations should have been dismissed in the database. The majority of the cases [Feddor] contested successfully. But we are taking steps to rectify the situation so in the future an actual registered plate number will not be used to do the testing,” Walsh said.

There seem to be a number of risky technical issues here, such as as performing testing on live customer data, not checking whether the plate is currently in use, and of course actually issuing tickets to the customer.

Found via Near Loop Wire.