Motorists in Bengaluru now have a reason to cheer, since the traffic police have started accepting scanned soft copies of driving licences and registration papers to verify vehicle documents.
“It is not compulsory for people to carry physical copies of their driving license. We will not impose any fine if they show us the scanned copies,” said Abhishek Goyal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Traffic, East.
The move has come after the Union government’s repeated emphasis on digitisation.
Until a few days ago, cops were insisting on producing original hard copies of the documents. However, they now have a system in place to verify the authenticity of the documents.
Mechanism to Authenticate Documents
Digital copies are generally seen as more vulnerable to fraud. Nevertheless, the Bengaluru traffic police say that they have a verification process to validate them. “We can verify whether the documents are original or fake using the driving license number. Our system is directly linked to the (Regional Transport Office) RTO database. Hence, it is easy to identify,” said Abhishek Goyal, DCP Traffic, East.
In Drink & Drive Cases, Original Mandatory
The only situation in which motorists will be required to produce the original copies is in cases of drunk driving or accidents. In case of traffic violations, the police do not have an alternative but to seize the documents.
Even the DigiLocker service which was launched by the government last year will not help in such cases.
DigiLocker is a mobile application that enables citizens to store a range of official documents on the cloud. When documents are downloaded from this platform and shown to the cops, it is said to be as good as verifying an original copy. “We welcome the move initiated by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and we are open to inspecting vehicle documents on DigiLocker as well,” the DCP added.
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