Something strange happened a few days ago. My friend and I stumbled across a traffic police constable while taking a turn to Tipu Sultan Road from Shara-e-Faisal. I was a bit surprised since we didn’t break any signal or traffic law. Anyhow, my friend stopped the car and got out.
The cop asked for the driving license and registration paper of the car from my friend in a usual rude manner. Although such behavior has become a norm these days for us Karachiites, it still made me angry. My friend, however, didn’t protest and quietly handed the papers over to the constable.
After briefly examining the license, the police officer turned to his fellows. My friend followed. Since I was sitting in the car, I didn’t know what was happening there. My friend argued with the cop for some 15 minutes. When he returned, he wore a long face. “They are saying my driving license is fake. There will be a hefty fine,” he told me.
My friend tried his best to tell the cop that he got his license from the Nazimabad Branch of traffic police and that too after a long struggle. But they didn’t listen and insisted on a fine. However, they later let us go after taking Rs1,000 and warned my friend to get the valid license as soon as possible. When I asked my friend for the receipt of the fine, he said he had forgotten to ask for it in panic.
Also Read: 90pc Of Drivers In Karachi Don’t Have A Valid Driving License
We shared this incident with our office colleagues, one of whom said he had suffered the same fate near the National Stadium Road. This made us quite puzzled and, of course, frustrated. After some online searching and asking people around, we came across a mobile app that can check whether your license is original.
The Android app, ‘Driving License Sindh’, can be downloaded from Play Store for free. The app confirms your license details by searching the traffic police database. Therefore, you will need Internet access via Wi-Fi or mobile data.
The process is quite straightforward. You enter your national identity card or driving license number. If your license is valid, the app will show you details like the name of the license holder, type of license, dates of issue and expiry, etc. But if isn’t authentic, you won’t see any details on the screen.
However, if your license is original and you still don’t see any details, you should visit the nearest traffic police office as soon as possible.
Although we don’t know the legal standing of this app, for now, it is surely the best way to counter someone who starts to question your license’s authenticity in the middle of the road.
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Like any other ordinary citizen, I can only hope (against hope) that when the police system is made efficient and police officials are made answerable to public representatives, only then will we be able to verify driving licenses and register cars through an SMS or other such means. And that will indeed save us from the everyday headache people like my friend have to face every day.
This app is a piece of Crap. I have verified licence and it says no record found in database :/
The app works fine. I have verified three licences from this app.
It is the cops’ responsibility to somehow verify the driving license. It is not the citizen’s responsibility to demonstrate the license is not counterfeit.
Even then, if you show using some random application that driving license is real, why would the policeman/policewoman feel he/she wants to believe you? For somebody hell bent upon faking a license. how difficult it is to fake an app which displays the license details as true?
Why should an ordinary citizen have access to police database in which he/she can not only see his/her own details but the details of any random CNIC # he/she can think of?
Which company is this info-xs which is making this app? How have they gotten their hands on the entire database of traffic police? Their website is not working.
Citizens have given their details to Traffic department. How can another company get access to that data and even make it public?
If you look permissions for the app, it requires Location (both GPS and network-based). Why would this type of app want this sort of permission?
It also wants to read Device ID and Call information. Why? Can it not fulfill its intended purpose without these permissions?
If you see the comments in the Google Play store, the developer has responded to everybody that they are having network problem. Even on comments which are not mentioning any problem, they have this copy-paste response. Except for a few people who could see their results and the developer has asked them to send their CNIC to the company email.
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The only reason of the existence of such an app is that many times citizens get duped at the hands of the agents loitering around driving license office. In this situation, citizens themselves do not know whether their own license is fake or real.
However better methods exist than some random app of shady origin. A good method is to take a driving license verification letter (NOC) from the office which issued your license. This is a standard method and such letter is a basic requirement of verification of driving license by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) if you think you will expatriate to a foreign country where they will require from you a verified license, this is the procedure you will adopt. What I want to say is that extremely authentic government procedures and internationally applicable methods of driving license verification exist since forever but PW is doing a bad job about spreading awareness of legal matters but focusing on making چربہ. Why do you not get a lawyer on-board?
If your license is issued from Karachi then this app is updated & useful. For small towns this app has no data yet because those branches copy the data to some drive & then send it to relevant department in Karachi after few months or so.
Your license must not be from Karachi.
Its not available for IOS
can the app be downloaded from outside pakistan?
and does the app work from abroad?