{"id":395899,"date":"2020-05-07T09:54:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T07:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=395899"},"modified":"2020-05-07T10:05:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T08:05:03","slug":"south-africa-is-introducing-new-drivers-licences-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/395899\/south-africa-is-introducing-new-drivers-licences-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa is introducing a new driver&#8217;s licence &#8211; what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Transport plans to introduce updated driver&#8217;s licence cards within the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting in a parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday (6 May), the department said that the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) &#8211; a trading entity of the Department of Transport which is responsible for card production &#8211; officially took over the card production facility in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>When this took place, the group discovered that the country&#8217;s card machines had not been upgraded since 1998 and that the live capture units (LCUs) also needed an upgrade.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The DLCA embarked on a journey to modernise the card production environment which involved the replacement of the LCUs with LEUs (Live Enrollment Units) and the introduction of a new driving licence card,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>However, it said that the security of the card design was compromised when the laptop of a DLCA official was stolen.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Transport said that the plan for the introduction for a new driver&#8217;s licence card has since been resuscitated and it is envisaged that a new durable driving licence card will be <strong>introduced by the end of 2021\/22<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This card will boast improved security features and will be &#8216;ISO 18013 compliant&#8217; &#8211; meaning it will be internationally accepted.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Transport said that the modernisation of the DLCA will also allow for a number of other improvements, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reducing the production turnaround from 12 days to 7 days;<\/li>\n<li>Introducing an electronic\/mobile driving licence;<\/li>\n<li>Creating a platform for introducing e-services;<\/li>\n<li>Re-engineering of the DLCA process to allow for automation of support services and the elimination of the manual process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Impact of the lockdown<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The department confirmed that the coronavirus lockdown has had an impact on the introduction of these new cards, but did not indicate how the project was delayed.<\/p>\n<p>It added that the DLCA is losing revenue of around R19 million month due to the reduction of licence applications during the lockdown period.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Transport also predicts that the country will face a card backlog once the lockdown has lifted and motorists are allowed to apply for licences.<\/p>\n<p>This is due to a &#8216;possible sharp increase&#8217; in the driver&#8217;s licence cards applications as well as routine maintenance on card production machines, it said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/395855\/government-makes-changes-to-allowed-travel-times-during-lockdown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Government makes changes to permitted travel times during lockdown<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Transport plans to introduce updated driver&#8217;s licence cards within the next two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":309024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-395899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395899"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395923,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395899\/revisions\/395923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}