KARACHI, Jan 21: The government will start issuing computerized driving licences with embedded security features to avoid issuance of bogus licences from the first week of February, it has been learnt here.
According to reliable sources, the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) will develop the software and system and will provide technical assistance to the police. The sources said that the cost of a learner’s licence would be Rs120 while a permanent one would cost Rs250. In the first phase there would be five licence registration centres (LRCs) – three in the city and one each in Hyderabad and Larkana.
The decision to this effect was taken in principle at a meeting held between the caretaker chief minister and Nadra officials at the Chief Minister’s House on Jan 13, 2008, insiders said.
Nadra will provide the computer hardware for all the LRCs, a complete software solution, verification system (Verisys), licence cards embedded with RFId (Radio Frequency Identity) chips along with chip writers, network connectivity (LAN and WAN) and training of the police officials concerned. After the officials concerned are fully trained, Nadra would gradually withdraw and hand over the complete process to the police.
The sources said that the licence would be issued on the same day and the applicant could register for a learner’s licence at one centre while he/she could obtain the permanent licence from any other centre as all records would be kept in and managed through a central database. This would help the authorities to check cases of multiple licences issued to a single applicant from different centres.
The proposed hi-tech system is based on the high security RFId Driving Licence System (RDLS) to ensure transparency and provide credibility with the provision of verification capabilities of an applicant’s credentials from its database and includes security features in the driving licence to make it authentic, added the sources. An applicant must have a computerized national ID card before applying for a new driving licence.
Plugging the holes
The sources said that the present licence system had some shortcomings which included no means to check the authenticity of the applicant’s credentials; the database of driving licence issuing centres was not interconnected; present licences had no security features to verify their authenticity; there were separate application software and database servers for learner’s permits and permanent licences, separate hardware – servers, computers, cameras, and printers, etc – for learner’s permits and permanent licences, and the permanent licence could only be obtained from the centre at which the learner’s licence was issued.
The new licence would be embedded with an RFId chip providing all necessary information, like the driver’s identification data along with his traffic violation history. The new system would also be helpful for issuance and printing of new licence cards – including learner’s and permanent – and re-issuance of lost licence cards, besides recording and maintaining vital statistical information data of all driving licence holders, sources said.
They added that Nadra would install hi-tech computerized workstations at the LRCs in the province in two phases and within six months it would be expanded to cover all the districts of Sindh.
There would be a number of workstations at each centre which would capture and store the applicant’s personal information, photograph and signatures in the local server, which, in turn, would transmit the data to the central site that – after verification and validation – would initiate a production process for issuing new licences, renewals, updates and corrections duly followed by quality checks of international standards. All data acquisition sites would be connected through wide area connectivity to the central site for transfer of data from the local server to the central database.
The sources said that data such as photograph, fingerprints, name, address, date of birth, CNIC number, blood group, driver’s licence number and type of the applicant would be kept on the central server.
Security features
They added that the security features of the new licence would rest in the RFId chip, which will facilitate data reading and writing. The data would be stored in two blocks on the chip. The first block would contain personal information of the licence holder, which will be burnt electronically so that it cannot be changed or modified. The second block would be re-writeable where the history of the violations will be recorded. Bar codes will be tracked throughout the production process to maintain a ‘zero-gap’ document.
Under the new system, traffic sergeants would be provided with handheld Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) – RFId reader/writer devices – which would be used to read/write the road fines directly into the RFId-licence chip; the information would be transmitted to the central server once the PDA would be docked into the nearest provided server designated to collect such data. The system would have a centrally managed database and would help to carry out online verification of the drivers using Nadra’s verification system – Verisys.
The sources said that Nadra was already assisting Bangladesh, where it had so far issued over 200,000 driving licences, while it has also been short-listed by the Egyptian government for a similar project.
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