Access to employee driving licence details online

Employers have to make sure that, when employing an applicant to drive a vehicle, that individual has the right licence and qualifications in order to carry out the role. Generally, this took place using information from the paper counterpart of the driving licence. A new service introduced on 8^th June 2015 allows drivers to share their licence record with third parties online. This service was designed to make up-to-date information available for people checking the status of the licence, rather than relying on a paper document which had the potential to be out of date. View Driving Licence (VDL) is an online service where individuals can enter their personal information and view their driving record online. This driving record will include the categories of vehicle they are qualified to drive, whether they have any penalty points on their licence and whether they have been subject to any disqualifications. The VDL replaces the paper counterpart of the driving licence. Employees can also obtain a check code to give to their employers, who can then use that together with the last 8 characters of the employee’s driving licence to view the required details by using the ‘Share Driving Licence’ page on the gov.uk website. It will be a breach of data protection law if an employer makes these checks without the employee’s consent. If you need any clarification on this issue then contact the Peninsula Advice Service on 0844 892 2772.