The Island Traffic Authority (ITA) is moving to introduce technology aimed at eliminating corruption in the issuance of learner’s permits and driver’s licences.

Colonel Daniel Pryce, director general of the ITA, made the revelation at this week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange to mark the start of Global Road Safety Week.

Pryce explained that each component of the driver’s licence process — the written, yard, and road tests — can be enhanced with technology to reduce bias, and improve fairness, while removing human discretion and subjectivity.

“We are intending to put in a system that is electronic. When you go in to sit the test you would have to make an appointment, you determine where you want to do the test, you go there [and] there is a bank of computers, you go and sit the test and you would have to upload certain information which would include a current photograph of yourself,” he explained.

Applicants, he said, will have 20 minutes to complete 20 questions and they must get at least 15 correct to pass the test.

“If you get six wrong it cuts you off and tells you that you have failed, so there is no discretion for a man to say ‘Give me a bly’,” he said.

“When you have successfully done that test and passed it, the information is transmitted to the tax office in real time so there is no handling of any document by the individual to go to the tax office,” he further explained.

Pryce also said that the new system will include built-in features to ensure that the individual who starts the test is the same person who completes it.

“Technology is what we are going to have to rely on to make the acquisition of a driver’s licence more objective because once you have a man who has the pen, that person can exert a certain sort of influence,” said Pryce.

He acknowledged that the new system will not only discourage people from trying to “buy” their licences without taking the required tests, but will also protect those who genuinely perform well from being unfairly failed simply because they didn’t offer a bribe.

While upbeat about the planned changes, Pryce was clear that the time line for implementing these technology-driven systems largely depends on the availability of funding.