Driver display cards in the city’s autorickshaws will soon be embedded with a secure code to counter any effort to tamper with the cards or forge them.
The system of issuing driver display cards, which began in 2006 to help the police and passengers identify errant autorickshaw drivers refusing to go on hire or demanding excess fare, was feared to be going off-track in view of complaints of tampering with them and forgery.
Home Minister K.J. George on Thursday launched the secure code technology, which has been described as “tamper-proof” and the “first of its kind in the country”.
Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) B. Dayanand said that all the existing display cards will be replaced with new ones embedded with the secure code. “Our target is to issue cards embedded with secure code to all the 80,000 autorickshaws in the city. The encrypted data in the code can be read by using mobile phone app, desktop webcam or a barcode reader,” Mr. Dayanand said.
The traffic police believe this technology will help curb the menace among drivers of maxi-cabs as well.
“The information on the display card can be easily retrieved by the police on the roads with the help of a simple mobile phone app. In addition to driver details, the vehicle’s details, the driver’s photograph, his mobile phone number, his blood group and Aadhaar number can be captured into the secure code matrix and can be easily read,” a police official said.
