Land Transportation Office (LTO) Chief Arturo Lomibao on Wednesday assured that the agency’s traffic enforcers are properly trained to enforce the electronic tagging of motor vehicles.

This was in response to the recommendation of Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Leila De Lima for the LTO to give proper training to all personnel who will handle critical roles in the implementation of the project to prevent any abuses which can result to possible human rights violations.

Lomibao has also assured the CHR that the agency’s Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) does not pose any threat to individual privacy as proper safeguards has been installed to prevent any violation of human rights and possible abuses of enforcers.

The RFID tags do not have a Global Positioning System (GPS) capability “thus the system cannot track the location and movement of motor vehicles, nor of the people riding the vehicles” according to the LTO.

The LTO stressed that the RFID system allows electronic verification of vehicle identity and data which are already stipulated in the official receipt (OR) and certificate of registration (CR) and not the personal information of the owner such as the contact details.

According to the LTO, the system can only retrieve data from a tagged vehicle within a radius of 10-12 meters.

Efren de Luna, president of the transport group Alliance for Concerned Transport Organizations (ACTO), called on all transport groups in the country to unite against colorum vehicles and maximize the use of the RFID project to curb the problem of illegal public utility vehicles.