Digital licences to end long queues at Licensing Authority

Drivers frustrated by long waits at the Barbados Licensing Authority’s Pine headquarters to collect their driver’s licence cards could soon say goodbye to the queues, with the introduction of a digital licence carried on mobile devices, acting Chief Licensing Officer Treca McCarthy-Broomes has announced.

“I’m very pleased to state that the Licensing Authority is going to be in short order allowing citizens to have an additional option of having a digital driving license,” McCarthy-Broomes said told the audience at the fourth of a series of national consultations on traffic, held at Alexandra School, Speightstown.

Barbados is poised to lead the region in this area, she said: “Now, a digital driving license, this will be the first in the English-speaking Caribbean… Barbados will be the first in the English-speaking Caribbean to actually have a digital driver’s licence.”

The move is also expected to address ongoing issues with the printing of physical cards, after the entity experienced several months of problems with its printing systems. “So the challenges that we’re having with the card machine systems down or whatever the case may be will be a thing in the past in short order,” McCarthy-Broomes said.

In addition to the digital licence, she announced plans to expand online services, including the ability to renew licences via the mobile messaging app WhatsApp: “You will not have to come into the Pine just to get your driver’s license card. You will have an option of getting a digital driving license. Also you’ll also have an option to pay on WhatsApp.”

Motorists will be able to renew their licences for varying periods. “Take up your phone and you can renew your driver’s license on WhatsApp for one year, three years, five years or even ten years,” she said, adding that “for citizens 75 and over, they will have an option to pay for the two years one time”.

Underscoring the broader goal, she said the changes form part of a wider push towards improved service delivery: “So we are modernising and we’re actually allowing citizens to have more options to be able to do more.”

(SB)