Bill Thompson says that my company easyCar is both "unethical" and "intrusive" for publishing photographs of drivers at www.easyCar.com whose cars are more than 15 days overdue. But I maintain that this policy is in the best interests of the consumer.

When customers arrive at an easyCar site to collect their vehicle a photograph is taken of them using a webcam. This photograph is taken both with the knowledge and the co-operation of the customer.

It is only when a car becomes overdue by more than 15 days and we are unable to contact customers who has not reported the car as missing to the police, that we reserve the right, as stated in our terms and conditions, to publish the photograph of the driver on our website.

This policy has been reviewed by the Office of the Information Commissioner who found no fault with easyCar.

Bill Thompson's article is idealistic to the extent that it lacks commercial reality Stelios Haji-Ioannou

At easyCar it is possible to drive away in one of our cars - most frequently a Mercedes - for under �5. We are giving people a �15,000 asset with no cast-iron guarantee that the car will be returned.

It is therefore essential, commercially sensible and entirely ethical that we ask our customers to give us as much information about themselves as possible, including a photograph, which is only published in the extreme circumstances described above.

If cars are not returned at their contracted time this impairs our ability to control our inventory and if we are unable to collect any overdue fees this is money lost. These two points do not help us in offering cheap car hire to the public at large.

The vast majority of easyCar customers return their vehicles at the appointed time and they should not be asked to subsidise the tiny minority whose cars become overdue.

Bill Thompson's article is idealistic to the extent that it lacks commercial reality. A study of the car hire industry shows that it is suffering from profit warnings and retreats by individual companies from existing territories.

The easy empire includes cars, jets and net cafes

EasyCar has entered this uncertain terrain with the objective of being a profitable company while offering prices at around a third those of the incumbents.

It is essential to easyCar therefore that our cars do not become overdue. The experiment which we started at the beginning of October of publishing photographs of the drivers of overdue cars has been entirely successful.

EasyCar currently has no cars in the UK overdue by more than 15 days that have not been reported to the police by their drivers.

Before easyCar started publishing the photographs of the drivers of overdue cars I calculated that the cost of overdue cars to the company was 50p per car per day for every car in the entire fleet.

Furthermore, I calculated that when I float easyCar at the end of 2004 this cost would have risen to five million pounds a year.

I am duty bound to my future shareholders to ensure that this cost is kept to a minimum and it is in my interest as a businessman to ensure that the majority of my customers do not end up footing this bill either.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, chairman and founder of easyGroup.

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