Driver Document Tracking for Courier Fleets

Driver document management is one file per courier, holding the current licence, right to work, insurance and vehicle documents, each with an expiry date and an alert before that date. Verification is the check when a document arrives. Tracking is the diary that stops it lapsing unnoticed. You need both, and they are not the same job.

Updated 25 September 2026. This page stays on the diary. How to inspect a document is the driver document verification guide. How often to repeat a driver licence check is that article, not this one.

• What the file holds
• Tracking is not verification
• How long to keep driver data
• Frequently asked questions
  • What is driver document management?
  • How is tracking different from verification?
  • What should happen on the expiry date?

# What the file holds

One courier, one file, with a date on every item that can expire:

• Photocard expiry and entitlement expiry, as two dates. Some carriers refuse an expired card even where the entitlement continues. Record both and follow the stricter of the law and the contract.
• The right-to-work check: the method, the date and the checker. Zerity stores that evidence. It does not perform the Home Office check.
• Motor insurance, including hire and reward if that is what the work requires, and the expiry.
• MOT expiry and vehicle tax expiry, as separate dates. A taxed van on an expired MOT is not a single alert.
• Open defects from the walkaround, linked from the van to the driver who reported them.

The alert has to fire early enough to book the MOT or repeat the check. An alert on the morning the card lapses is a record of a miss, not a control. If the depot's rule says the document must be in date, the driver does not go out.

# Tracking is not verification

Verification is the look you take when the document arrives: the photo matches, the categories cover the van, the Home Office check was the prescribed one. Tracking is the diary afterwards. A photocopy with no date fails both tests. A perfect check from last year fails the diary if nobody wrote the next date.

Courier compliance software is the file. Near misses, handbooks and training records are a health and safety question, covered on the health and safety product, not a second document system.

# How long to keep driver data

The Information Commissioner's Office states the storage limitation principle in plain terms: do not keep personal data for longer than you need it. For a depot, the need is the legal duty and the contract, including the period an auditor or an insurer can still ask for the record. When that need ends, delete the copy. Do not use a driving licence image to market to the driver.

That is the principle, not a full GDPR guide. Zerity's controls, including encryption and where data sits, are on the security page.

The wider definition of the file, and which rules apply only to some vans, is fleet compliance.

# Frequently asked questions

# What is driver document management?

It is one file per driver holding the current licence, right to work, insurance and vehicle documents, each with an expiry date and an alert before that date.

# How is tracking different from verification?

Verification is the check you do when the document arrives. Tracking is the diary that stops it expiring unnoticed. You need both.

# What should happen on the expiry date?

The driver does not go out if the policy says the document must be in date. The alert has to fire early enough to book the MOT or repeat the check, not on the morning the card lapses.