Vehicle Documents Authentication Service that Alerts the Police of Problems

 Emeka Maduewesi   

We have to continue to show that we are not just about politics. We have much to offer Nigeria and fellow Nigerians.

What do you think of a Motor Vehicle Insurance System that allows you to process your insurance with your cell phone or over the internet and alerts the police and the Federal Road Safety Commission when your vehicle is stolen or involved in an accident? This system will leverage the services provided by the federal, States, or Local governments as far as motor vehicles are concerned using the convergence of our existing Banking, Insurance, and Communications infrastructures.

In early 2007 I designed such a system that, if implemented, will allow Nigerians to purchase vehicle insurance using our mobile phone or over the internet. I designed this system around vehicle insurance because vehicle insurance is compulsory under Nigerian law . I also designed it around cell phones because almost every Nigerian who has a motor vehicle has a cell phone. This system allows you to alert the police and your insurance in real time by sending SMS to a shortcode (number) if you were involved in an accident or if your vehicle was stolen. Depending on the data you supplied to your insurance company when you bought your insurance, the picture of your vehicle may be available to the police for a more targeted search and recover.

I recall sharing my literature on this subject with some highly placed individuals and government officials. Of course, some of them hurriedly built websites that implemented only about five percent (5%) of my ideas. I am not talking about websites. My idea is in the scope of software services provided by www.intuit.com or www.salesforce.com , platformed on a Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Socket Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocols with alert and verification systems. This is the future of computing - software as a service (SaaS) or Cloud Computing!

My system, if implemented, will provide Nigerians with real-time processing and verification of vehicle insurance, vehicle registration and vehicle roadworthiness. For the Government the system provides in real time:
Document verification;
Document authentication;
Data collection;
Smart policing and enhanced security.

Other direct benefits of the system include:
More revenue for Insurance companies;
More SMS revenue for the Communications companies;
More transactional revenue for the Banks;
Compulsory and automatic payment of all genuine claims submitted via the system;
More VAT revenue for the government;
More profit for insurance companies;
More tax revenue for the government;
Smarter Policing and Security; and
Creation of more Jobs.

The system will also ensure:
Reduction in transactional cost; less paper;
Reduction in fraud by insurance agents;
Elimination of fake insurance agents;
Reduction in police corruption for vehicular related offenses;
Reduction in waste; man hours, process;
Reduction of vehicular theft;
Increase in chances of recovering stolen vehicles;
Elimination of registration of stolen vehicles; and
Ability to pay for any of these services from any part of the world.

Other uses of the system will include:
Data Collection – Make, Model, Year of vehicles;
Accurate Statistics – locations of accidents and number of fatality by the Road Safety Commission;
Faster Processing of vehicle insurance claims; and
Efficient Utilization of Technology.

The system is developing-country-friendly. These countries have no legacy system for vehicle registration and policing. However, internet access and cell phones are becoming ubiquitous even in these countries.

What do you think?

Emeka Maduewesi is a dual-qualified (Nigeria and California) international lawyer with cross-border intellectual property and technology transactions, licensing, regulatory, complex commercial litigation and antitrust experience. He has a Masters Degree in Intellectual Property and Technology Law from the University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco, California. He is the Publisher of http://www.nigerianlawregistry.com/ and http://www.nlid.info/