New security features aim to curb forged accessible parking permits

thestar.com
Jan. 12, 2016
By Oliver Sachgau

The Ontario government has announced new accessible parking permits with security features that make them harder to forge.

The announcement, made on Monday, takes effect immediately, but current permits will be valid until they have to be renewed.

The new security features, which include machine-readable barcodes and serial numbers, were put in place in order to make forging the permits harder, according to a news release by the government.

About 1,030 permits were seized by police in Ontario and reported to Service Ontario, according to Anne-Marie Flanagan, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. About 700,000 accessible permits are currently in circulation.

Unlike the previous permits, the new ones will not come laminated, and laminating them will be forbidden, as it makes the security features unreadable. Permit holders will also have identification like a driver’s license along with their permits.

Sandra Carpenter, executive director for Centre for Independent Living in Toronto welcomed the announcement’s aim to curb forging of accessible parking permits, which she’s advocated for a long time.

“We’re looking forward to the changes if it means that there will be less abuse of the privilege that we fought hard for,” Carpenter said.

Scott Wylie, a patrol supervisor with the disabled liaison unit of the Toronto police echoed Carpenter’s sentiment. According to Wylie, Toronto police seized about 1,000 permits in 2015, and laid about 800 charges in relation to those. Without up-to-date security features, forged permits are sometimes hard to recognize, he said.

“It’s very easy to scan them. It’s hard for us to determine if it’s real or a fake,” he said.

The government introduced some security features in 2006, Wylie said, but scanning technology has since caught up.

“We have to keep on top with it, and the ministry has done that with these new permits,” he said.