Legal basis and objectives

The Directive 2006/126/EC requires the common European Union driving licence model to be adopted by the Member States as the single driving licence model. The three basic principles behind the Directive are:

  1. “Mutual Recognition” – The Article 2(1) states that “Driving licences issued by Member States shall be mutually recognized.”
  2. The driving licence is linked to “Normal residence”. The Article 12 defines “Normal residence” as the place where a person usually lives, that is for at least 185 days in each calendar year, because of personal and occupational ties.
  3. No person may hold more than one driving licence as required by Article 7(5).

The RESPER (RESeau PERmis de conduire) network has been conceived to ensure that the requirements of the Directive 2006/126/EC are met by the Member States. Some of the key objectives and benefits of RESPER system are following:

  • To establish an interoperable data exchange network between driving licence administrations in national authorities of the Member States as required by Legislative Framework.
  • To facilitate the proper functioning and application of all Community driving licence provisions.
  • To facilitate the free movement of licence holders.
  • To combat document fraud and forgery and improve road safety
  • To speed up the driving licence issuing and verification process.

Network architecture

The RESPER functionality is incorporated both into the EC Central Hub, and into the EUCARIS system. A Member State is free to choose what system to use for the RESPER exchange. The two systems are tied together to form one overall network, so that Member States using EUCARIS can reach Member States using EC Central Hub, and vice versa. The EUCARIS broker is the component that forms an intermediary between the two systems, by translating message formats, switch from synchronous to asynchronous, and handling time out differences between the systems.

Functionality

The RESPER system offers 4 message exchanges.

Message exchange 1: Search Driving License By Name (SDLN).

Via this exchange, it can be established if a natural person holds a license, in one of the RESPER countries. Therefore, this message exchange can be used to verify objective 3. If a person applies for a license somewhere, SDLN can be used to check if this person already holds a license somewhere else. This check can be done in either one specific country, or all countries belonging to the RESPER network, or a subset of countries (e.g. the neighbouring countries, and/or the country the applicant was born or has lived, studied, worked etc.).

The search is done on family name, first name and date of birth. For searching, the first name and family name are converted to a  phonetic key (NYSIIS), to avoid that persons can not be found because of small spelling errors, small differences in typography (e.g. with or without diacritical characters) or transliteration differences (e.g. Khrushchev vs. Chroesjtsjov). Therefore, a search result may either be a person exactly matching the search criteria, or a person whose name is a little different (so that the receiver must decide if the person obtained is the person he is actually looking for).

The message exchange can be incorporated into a license exchange process, but also in regular driving license issue processes. It is best practice to not check all applicants, but to check only if there are reasonable grounds. Reasonable grounds may either be derived from ‘motive’ (e.g. check applicants whose license is withdrawn or disqualied, because this applicant has a motive to try and obtain a license elsewhere) or ‘opportunity’ (e.g. check professional international drivers, because they are abroad often, and so they have an opportunity to obtain a license elsewhere).

Technically, at the EUCARIS side, the message dialogue is synchronous, with an appropriate time out value (i.e. about 20 seconds). At the EC side, however, the time out is 48 hours. This means that in Multi Country inquiries, countries using EC Central Hub may respond with time out, because of the end of EUCARIS time out. However, a response may still come. Such response is treated as a ‘late’ response, i.e. in EUCARIS it is handled asynchronously instead of synchronously. Furthermore, EUCARIS offers a facility to re-retrieve the complete consolidated response after the end of EC Central Hub time out has elapsed. This response, then, contains all responses given by all countries that were inquired.

Message exchange 2: Get Driving License Details (GDLD).

Via this exchange, driving license documents can be checked against the driving license register data in the country that issued the license.

GDLD is used to check licenses that are offered for exchange. The issuing country provides the details of the license (so that the receiver can check if this corresponds with the data printed on the license), along with a status to indicate if it is (still) valid.

Like message exchange 1, at the EUCARIS side, the message dialogue is synchronous, with an appropriate time out value (i.e. about 20 seconds). At the Hub side, however, the time out is 48 hours. A late response is handled in an asynchronous way, and can be retrieved by a separate process.

Message exchange 3: Notification DL Status (NDLS).

This is an information exchange between a RESPER Member State carrying out an exchange procedure, and the RESPER Member State where the license that is offered for exchange, was issued.

The notification is intended to facilitate the driving license exchange process, so that a driving license can be exchanged with mutual consent between the issuing Member State and the Member State of exchange. Also, the issuing Member State can record the exchange event in its national register.

The issuing Member States sends a response, which is basically an acknowledgement (status OK).

The message exchange is synchronous.

Message exchange 4: Secure Message (MS).

Secure messaging may be used if the outcome of a certain RESPER inquiry raises questions.

Examples:

  1. a. The SDLN inquiry returns a person, of which the receiver doubts if this person is the same person as the one applying for a license.
  2. b. The GDLD inquiry returns that a license is invalid, and the receiver wants to know more about this.

A secure message is an XML message of which two variants exist. If the question is one of the standard question formulated for RESPER, it is recommended to use the coded question variant, i.e. the identifying details of person or driving license are provided, together with a question in coded form, and possibly additional information. The Member State receiving a coded question, is supposed to answer by a coded answer (of which a standard list is available), and possibly addtional information and/or additional details relevant to the answer (person details or driving license details).

If the question to be asked is very specific (not present in the list of standard questions) it is possible to use the free format variant. Now, a free format text is typed. Please note that this exchange is language sensitive. It is recommended to use the English language unless it is known that the receiver questions prefers another language.

A free format question is answered by a free format answer. Here, it is recommended to use the language that was used in asking the question, unless it is known that the receiver is comfortable with another language.

In both variants, it is possible to include attachments (e.g. a document in .pdf format or a picture/screen shot etc.)

The message exchange can be called ‘secure’ for two reasons:

  • It is sent via EUCARIS, via a secured transport channel, over an accredited network (sTesta).
  • EUCARIS organises that message attachments are scanned for viruses and malware (using the antivirus software of the Member States involved in the exchange).

The message exchange is asynchronous. Messages arrive in the local download queue, from where they can be picked up to read them and respond to them.

Technically, there is no difference between the first secure message, and the response to it (or subsequent replies). Functionally, the businessCaseId is used to link messages together.

The EUCARIS web client offers facilities to view message threads, and separates the information exchange of messages sent plus replies received, from messages received plus replies sent.

 

Technical information

Visit this page for technical information on RESPER.

 

Connected countries and data overviews

Below, the list of countries that participate in Resper is given. Data overviews, of the countries that are using EUCARIS for RESPER, can be found on this downloads page.

  • A – Austria (Via EC Central Hub)
  • B – Belgium
  • BG -Bulgaria
  • CY – Cyprus
  • CZ – Czech Republic
  • D – Germany
  • DK – Denmark
  • E – Spain (Via EC Central Hub)
  • EST – Estonia
  • F – France (Via EC Central Hub)
  • FIN – Finland
  • GB – Great Britain (disconnected due to BREXIT)
  • GR – Greece (Via EC Central Hub)
  • H – Hungary
  • HR – Croatia
  • I – Italy
  • IRL – Ireland
  • L – Luxembourg
  • LT – Lithuania
  • LV – Latvia
  • M – Malta
  • N – Norway
  • NL – The Netherlands
  • P – Portugal (Via EC Central Hub)
  • PL – Poland
  • RO2 – Romania
  • S – Sweden
  • SK – Slovakia
  • SLO – Slovenia