Benefits/threats of online licensing?

[Ryo]

I'm not explicitly talking about LEH, but looking ahead to when the whole Hunting licensing system goes digital.

At sportsman's show this year the woman at the LEH licensing both told me that they are going this way to prevent fraud. When I asked about the big loophole in the now-online fishing licenses, being that you can reprint as many as you like, making your catch quota basically 'boyscout's honour,' she just shrugged her shoulders and had no answer. I know that technically you can achieve the same dirty end by claiming a license stolen or lost... but why invite the problem??

Am I missing something? Are there actual benefits to A) hunters and B) wildlife for the system to go online, or does it just save us a trip to walmart, and make a bunch of bureaucratic tech jobs in Victoria?

The only benefit I've found with my online fishing licenses is that I can keep a spare in my car in case I lose or forget one.

[wideopenthrottle]

the virtues of going to a mostly paperless system that cuts out snail mail seem obvious but it must also be simple to use to be a success

[adriaticum]

It will cut snail mail and it will cut time waste for shops who sell licenses and don't get compensated for that.

[TreeStandMan]

Going digital depends on implementation. For the LEH it makes sense to me not only in that it saves on postage, but it also cuts down on what must have been a mind numbing amount of data entry for the ministry. This way the LEH information is born digital, and remains digital. There may be some significant expense getting the thing up and running, but this is already a solved problem so if the thing's not mismanaged (and here's the problem), the savings should accrue in subsequent years. I see it as an efficiency for me too, because I make my LEH decisions sitting at my computer, looking at Google Earth, and I might as well submit the whole thing while I'm there.

Going forward with an entirely digital licencing system I'm less sure of, for exactly the reason Ryo mentioned with fishing licences, but I'd be interested to hear how other jurisdictions sort this out, if anyone here knows. If they do this it makes me wonder if they'll move towards some kind of mandatory reporting for game animals for which tags are required to hunt.

[hoochie]

making your catch quota basically 'boycott's honour,' she just shrugged her shoulders and had no answer.

maybe she was trying to figure out why the crickets suddenly became so loud

[Gateholio]

How do other jurisdictions handle it?