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ABOLITION OF THE COUNTERPART DRIVING LICENCE - News from the DVLA
Thursday 11th December 2014
DVLA are committed to abolishing the paper counterpart to the photocard driving licence by 2015. Paper licences issued before the photocard was introduced in 1998 are not affected.
Currently, anyone wishing to check a driver's licence status including entitlements and penalty points can check this information on the counterpart and photo card. Alternatively, users can phone or write to us subject to consent from the record holder.
Some users with consent from the record holder also utilise the services of driving licence checking intermediaries such as the Electronic Driver Entitlement Checking Service. We expect that in the absence of a counterpart, the use of intermediaries will grow.
The DVLA appreciate that some users have a genuine business need for real-time access to the information currently available on the counterpart, and may not wish to call DVLA or be in a position to use an intermediary.
Therefore we are developing new digital services to meet this need on the new Integrated Enquiry Platform.
The DVLA are working together with our third party users (such as employers, dealer associations' and hire car companies) to consider a number of options. One option is to provide a service that will allow users to share their records with those who have a right to view them. This will provide one time, read-only access to the record. Another option is for us to develop a real-time interface to allow organisations to enquire against the minimum set of data currently contained on the counterpart.