The abolition of the paper counterpart driving licence will encourage companies to refresh their risk management policies, says Licence Bureau.

The fleet driving licence checking and compliance company says that switching to all-online licence checking should also encourage fleets to refresh related HR policies, ensuring all relevant information is managed and stored safely and securely, and allowing Duty of Care obligations to be adhered to.

If a fleet’s management chooses to perform internal licence checks from today, they’ll need to quickly adapt to the recently launched Share Driving Licence service. They can do this by using the last eight digits of the employee’s licence number and a one-time unique code generated by the employee via View Driving Licence. This will last for 72 hours and is only valid for a solitary check.

If the employee doesn’t consent, employers should not use the View Driving Licence service by using other private employee information. It’s important that everyone with an HR role is aware that doing so is a serious offence under the Data Protection Act 1998 without the explicit consent of the data subject.

Employers can obtain written consent from the employee, although in companies with over 10 drivers, the company thinks this could cause further problems.

Managing director at Licence Bureau Malcolm Maycock (pictured) said: “The abolition of the paper counterpart raises further awareness that verifying an employee’s entitlement to drive is crucial and fleets need to do everything possible to minimise unnecessary risk.

“Moving to an all-online platform should question a company’s approach for licence checking and other in-house HR duties. Using a third-party provider, such as our Compliance Managed Services portal, to securely carry out regular and efficient checks, allows fleets to reduce unnecessary administration hours. In any case, both employers and employees need to be fully aware of their responsibilities when performing licence checks.”