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Mr Kwasi Agyeman Busia, Chief Executive Officer of the DVLA
Mr Kwasi Agyeman Busia, Chief Executive Officer of the DVLA

New driving licence out on July 18

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) will, from July 18, this year, introduce a new biometric driving licence.

To be issued within a period of one month, the new licence is aimed at doing away with the incidence of fake licences from the system and cutting out middlemen, popularly known as ‘goro boys’, from the licensing regime.

The new licence, which takes the form of a smart card, will contain a chip loaded with the owner’s biometric details.

The Chief Executive Officer of the DVLA, Mr Kwasi Agyeman Busia, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the new licence, unlike the previous one, would be difficult to clone.

The smart card driving licence, he explained, would have an embedded contact-less chip that stores details of the driver’s information, while a smart vehicle registration card with details of vehicles and owners would be embedded in a contact-less chip.

“This will ensure that people who have made duplication an industry will have it extra difficult to duplicate the licence. It will be practically impossible, as it will have enhanced security.

“It will also help us manage the revenue that will come to the authority because duplication is causing a lot of revenue leakage, particularly in the driving licence area. Driving licences have become the standard of our authority. We want to make sure this is protected,” he said.

Old applicants and backlogs

The termination of a contract between the DVLA and Messrs Foto-X/Digimarc Ltd over an allegation of fraud resulted in a backlog of applications for new licences.

With some applicants still waiting for their licences since 2014, the DVLA boss said the build-up would be cleared by July 18.

The last time the DVLA tried clearing the backlog was in November 2015 when 40,000 licences were issued.

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