The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has set up an Emerging Tech Lab to explore the potential of new technologies.
Digital architect Rob James has outlined its work in a blogpost that says the five-strong team – of himself, a technical lead and three developers – was recently created to develop proof of concepts on the use of different technologies.
Each project involves producing a working proof of concept to be shared with colleagues along what has been learned.
Its first initiative has been focused on the automation of checking photos supplied with driving licence applications. James says the team has been able to build a machine learning model to take on the process, which has successfully learned how to recognise which images are acceptable or unacceptable.
He adds that the team now has a backlog of ideas to explore using technologies including AI, augmented reality, chatbots and the more challenging use cases of machine learning.
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