Islanders are set to be part of a revolutionary national move that will see some physical driving licenses scrapped in favor of digital versions online.
The national move which has been outlined by Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, is part of a bid to make transport and travel in the UK more environmentally friendly.
Currently, every provisional license holder is issued with a plastic photocard and anyone who passes a driving test issued with a paper pass certificate. This could soon change, however, with plans for the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to create an online app to display so-called ‘virtual’ licenses.
The changes, which so far only affect provisional license cards and paper test certificates, are earmarked to be brought into place by 2024. Reports have suggested that full driving licenses could eventually follow suit and become virtual, but no timeframe has been given.
Further ‘digitising’ is set to take place too, with MOTs for heavy vehicles hauled into the 21st century by moving to digital booking platforms and scrapping paper MOT certificates. Car, motorbike, and van MOTs will remain unchanged, however.
Drivers who have recently passed their test will already be familiar with certain aspects of the digital process due to the paper counterpart of a driving license – which previously contained penalties and the details of vehicle category’s the holder was able to drive – discontinued in 2015.
The new moves have been outlined in the DVLA’s Strategic Plan for 2021 to 2024.
Speaking to Auto Car magazine, the Director of the RAC Foundation, Steve Gooding, said:
“These days, the one thing drivers are most likely to have with them is their phone, so using it to carry their driver’s licence could be quite handy.
“The risk is that the more personal data we store on our phones, the more tempting a target they become for thieves and hackers.”
Soon all our lives will be on computer, including the end of cash, our energy will be electric only as will our transport, and then, HMG can control us fully as one can a robot by just flicking a switch to check our bank statements, to limit our energy use and to see how far we travel and where.
The reason smart meters are being fitted is to then be able to charge us when electric cars use home charging and by HMG knowing the mileage used will then charge car charging a a far higher rate to make up for lack of road tax and fuel duty. THINK see what is happeing.
Smart meters are very intrusive. Just take a look at your online ‘energy hub’. Very complex algorithms break down exactly how you use your electric on heating, lighting, always on, laundry machines etc.
Mr Orwell would be proud.
Smart meters allow energy producers to know where their energy is going, when demand is likely to peak, and allow them to react in time.
Did you know that during the summer months parts of the east cowes power plant runs in reverse to counteract the overspill from the islands solar farms?
If everybody had a smart meter wasteful acts like this wouldn’t be necessary, as energy would be produced on demand as opposed to the current outdated suck it and see approach.
People like you are keeping our county in the Middle Ages, the rest of the world is moving in and we’re stuck in the past, so not as to offend dinosaurs like you.
Here we go, the first step towards ID cards , I collected a parcel from the post office the other day..’can i see your licence as proof of ID’..so what happens now? my licence is my only form of id as many others, they tested the coof app on us first, beryl scooters too, what next, a chip in your arm or someother authoritarian control? thanks a bunch Boris ‘Yeltsin’ Johnson..
Boris Johnson is so thick and such a liar he makes Donald Trump look like an honest genius…
I agree completely but what does this say about the people of this country who voted for him.
Quite a lot, unfortunately!
I don’t have a digital phone and can’t afford or want one, my text – talk is all I need, so how’s that going to work then.
I mean I use my driver’s license for ID. What about that? I know it’s digital but do you really think pubs etc will welcome that?
And for people who don’t have smart phones?
And for those who don’t own idiot phones? Oh yeah, we are all irrelevant in today’s world.
Blooming stupid idea, why not have both ?
Typically stupid assumption that everyone has a smart phone. What prat came up with this one.
Not all of us can afford new phones, what are we supposed to do eh? Are the Government going to provide them, I very much doubt it, but under the circumstances perhaps they should!
I disagree. The government and “the new world order” would gladly supply each and everyone one of us our very own unique phone, complete with Inbuilt tracker and DNA device’s.
Also getting your phone out to show your license would be an offence if you failed to stop your engine first.
Why not just have a government bar code tattooed on to your neck.
Who will be the first Muppet on this site to say…….”well, if you ain’t got nothing to hide”…bla,bla,bla.
Yeah the tattoo thing was tried before, around 1939/1945 I believe.
Never went down too well that time. How quickly we forget.
This is the same DVLA that has all but 6 of its staff not working from its 17-storey building? The same DVLA that has a backlog of 40,000 HGV licences waiting to be processed whilst the country goes to hell in a handcart?
THAT DVLA? Just to be sure?
Absolutely pathetic!
Thats right, save youselves some money and force us to spend money on data to access our licences. What happens if you don’t own a smart phone or there is no signal where the police officer asks to see your licence?
I do wish corporations and government could just shut up about being “environmentally friendly” when they make changes. It’s a money saving scheme, not a planet saving method.
Watching rich companies and the government try to be kind and being such hammy actors is unbelievably cringy
Glad they want to trial this on the Island. A lot of areas are notorious for poor or lack of phone signal so that will be interesting! But what happens when a crim swipes your phone? All this ‘smart’ stuff, whenever you see the word ‘smart’ just think who is actually being smart?
There is nothing smart about a phone, a meter and a motorway is there?
I would change it and call them all SMUG.
Whatever next digital toilet rolls?
Relying on too much digital technology is not always beneficial. Not everyone can afford a smart phone either and there are also a vast number of middle aged or even older persons not wishing to have a mobile phone. Unless a mobile device comes free this should be thought about again as you are indirectly bullying people into purchasing an item they may not want nor can they afford. What happend to freedom of choice? We are becoming more and more governed by technology, before long our names will become just numbers. Too many futuristic scenario’s become a part of life and look what happend to the world then?
So will I be avle to present my digital driving licence when I need to hire a vehicle abroad in an area where there is no internet connection or 4G? Grant Shapps please engange brain before mouth.