Why is a physical driving licence still necessary if police sees everything in their database?

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  • gilbutre
    gilbutre Posts: 434 Forumite
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    Summing up so far:

    Physical driving licence is needed by hire companies and by various entities abroad.

    If this is the case, should it not be required exclusively by these? Why is it required by the police?

    It's like, Amazon needs document X from customers who want to buy them something, therefore police requires everybody to have this document. Right.
  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344 Forumite
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    gilbutre wrote: »
    Summing up so far:

    Physical driving licence is needed by hire companies and by various entities abroad.

    If this is the case, should it not be required exclusively by these? Why is it required by the police?

    It's like, Amazon needs document X from customers who want to buy them something, therefore police requires everybody to have this document. Right.


    Let's get to the nub of this: what have you done that has got you concerned about the police's right to see your driving licence?
  • gilbutre
    gilbutre Posts: 434 Forumite
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    agrinnall wrote: »
    Let's get to the nub of this: what have you done that has got you concerned about the police's right to see your driving licence?

    I just lost it and now I have to waste an entire day going to bloody London to have it remade (it's a European licence). And I'm someone who viscerally abhors having to do something inconvenient for arbitrary reasons.
  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344 Forumite
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    Why do you need to go to London?


    https://www.gov.uk/apply-online-to-replace-a-driving-licence
  • CardinalWolsey
    CardinalWolsey Posts: 713 Forumite
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    AdrianC wrote: »
    A licence without a photo was simply a massively antiquated concept.

    It's why they got rid of dog licences as well. They knew that getting your pet pooch to sit still on a stool in a photobooth was never going to happen.
  • Car_54
    Car_54 Posts: 8,215 Forumite
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    gilbutre wrote: »
    I just lost it and now I have to waste an entire day going to bloody London to have it remade (it's a European licence). And I'm someone who viscerally abhors having to do something inconvenient for arbitrary reasons.
    I take it that you have a non-UK licence.


    In which case the answer to your original quaestion ("Can't they see information about the registered driver's driving licence (its expiration date for instance) and whether it has been confiscated after some infraction in the past") is:


    No, they can't. UK police don't have access to every other country's data.
  • seatbeltnoob
    seatbeltnoob Posts: 1,311 Forumite
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    If they just relied on the comptuer database then every 17 year old will have a field day secretly driving their parents car.
  • Car_54
    Car_54 Posts: 8,215 Forumite
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    seatbeltnoob wrote: »
    If they just relied on the comptuer database then every 17 year old will have a field day secretly driving their parents car.


    Please explain how that would work.
  • AndyMc.....
    AndyMc..... Posts: 3,248 Forumite
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    Car_54 wrote: »
    I take it that you have a non-UK licence.


    In which case the answer to your original quaestion ("Can't they see information about the registered driver's driving licence (its expiration date for instance) and whether it has been confiscated after some infraction in the past") is:


    No, they can't. UK police don't have access to every other country's data.

    Unless of course the op has convictions over here. In which case he’ll have a uk driver number and may have produced a non uk licence.
  • AdrianC
    AdrianC Posts: 42,189 Forumite
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    gilbutre wrote: »
    I just lost it and now I have to waste an entire day going to bloody London to have it remade (it's a European licence). And I'm someone who viscerally abhors having to do something inconvenient for arbitrary reasons.
    When you say "European licence", do you mean from a non-UK EU country?

    If so, then what the UK demands of UK licence holders is irrelevant...


    And it's your own fault for losing your licence, isn't it?
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