back to article UK's new drivers now in safe hands... of laser-wielding robots

Secure token biz Gemalto has landed the contract to print the next 80 million identity documents for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), including next-gen driving licences to be deployed next year. The new licences will feature laser-etched edges, making them even harder to copy, but they'll also be compliant with …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    sticky tape ?

    I want the credit card photo card to carry all the relevant information on me. It's 2012, I shouldn't have to carry a 2nd part of the license on paper.

    DVLA - Civil Servants without a clue about technology.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Facepalm

      Re: sticky tape ?

      Funnily enough, the photo card is legally accepted in every European country, except the one that issued it!

      In Blighty you also have to hand over a moth eaten, falling apart at the folds, piece of paper !

  2. Nev
    Thumb Up

    At least it won't be just a pink piece of folded card* with a photo stuck on it...

    ... as they have in Gemalto's home country of France.

    *Think 1940s style identity card.

  3. Ol'Peculier
    Happy

    Still got...

    Still got my pink licence, and am hanging on to it as long as I can, even if it has a long expired ban showing on it,. Don't see why I should have to pay every 10 years for a new one.

    And was worth it for the entertainment value when I got pulled in Nevada for speeding and gave it to the 'Merican copper!

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Re: Still got...

      I had to get a new card licence due to a recent house-move. I don't recall that it cost me anything. I still miss my dog-eared and stained pink licence, though.

      1. night troll
        Pirate

        Re: Still got...

        @ Intractable Potsherd 4/5/12 1140

        Just got my renewal of photo "Application" (how is it an application if it's mandatory if I want to keep driving?) that costs £20 plus a photo.

  4. FartingHippo

    non-forgeable licence?

    That's up there with "unsinkable ship"...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why print at all?

    There seems to be some typical muddled official thinking here. On the one hand creating "hard to forge" documents, on the other everything is online anyway: the document —genuine or not— will not be believed if the DVLA computer says no.

    A similar case with insurance certificates, my insurance company requires me to return the old cert (or sign a declaration that it is lost or destroyed) when it issues a new one because that is what the law requires, but at the same time will allow me to download a certificate and the law says if I print it myself it is the genuine article. Once again in practice it's not the piece of paper that counts but what is on the MID.

    Me, I've still got the old green sheet of paper issued in 1976, it doesn't expire to 2024.

  6. Jess--

    Don't care what form the license takes as long as the new one still reflects an accurate record of what I am allowed to drive.

    know of a couple of people who have had to get the license replaced and when the new one has come back classifications have vanished

    worst one was a hgv driver (the old HGV class 1 license) who received a replacement license with no hgv allowance, dvla's response was "we have no record of you ever having a hgv license, you will have to re-take the test" luckily he still had his original pass certificate from 30 years before and they accepted that as proof.

    general advice is to take a copy of your license before you cut it up and send it back for replacement.

    Long term I can see cars having a slot that you have to insert your license into before you can drive them, of course the cars will also change some sort of code on the exterior of the vehicle (lcd QR code on the number plate) to indicate who is driving so there can be no getting out of fines by claiming you didn't know who was driving etc.

    this will probably be pushed as an anti-theft service (restrict your car so only certain licenses can be used)

    insurance companies will push it as a way of reducing premiums (car restricted so that it will only accept licenses owned by people over 50 with no points on their license etc)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "when the new one has come back classifications have vanished"

      Just put in a for a replacement license on the ground of 'loss' of license - if they do lose some of the classes then find it again and complain.

  7. MF

    I do hope that the picture does not show your current Pink style driving license... Mr William John Ray, Brunswick Cre...........

    1. Cupboard

      "Don't know why we've blurred the address, I moved away from there years ago"

  8. MikeC366
    Happy

    They must make an app for this!

  9. Graham Marsden
    WTF?

    Will the DVLA remember what vehicles you're allowed to drive/ ride, though?

    I know several bikers who, when it comes to licence renewal, have claimed that theirs is "lost" because if they send them back to the DVLA they have a habit of sending new ones *without* the details of said bikers having passed their test and being told they're going to have to re-take it otherwise they'll be riding illegally!

    1. FredScummer
      WTF?

      Re: Will the DVLA remember what vehicles you're allowed to drive/ ride, though?

      i passed my bike test 35+ years ago, and I haven't experienced the throbbing sensation of 250cc going rapidly up and down inside an aluminium case between my legs for more than 30 of those years now. So a part of me says that just maybe I should be encouraged to do a retest.

      I've been a long term advocate of regular drivers having to be reconfirmed every few years anyway. I'm not talking full retest - just sit an examiner in the passenger seat and take him round the block, It'll quickly be obvious to him whether you might need some extra tuition, without any fancy test procedures, Would also help the employment situation for examiners too.

      It just doesn't seem sensible that having passed a test back in the early 70's that it should be assumed that I'm a safe driver today. I mean, we force MP's to retake their test every 5 years even though they'd vote for a job for life change given the opportunity.

  10. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Paper?

    You guys are living in the stone age.

  11. night troll
    Happy

    Still got....

    My little red book driving licence, no longer valid but I still have it

  12. Mookster
    FAIL

    No Printing history?

    "it also prints difficult-to-forge documents even if (unlike some of the competition) it didn't emerge from that business."

    Except that Gemplus acquired Setec (formerly the Bank of Finland Security Printing House) back in 2005

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