Electronic license sales nearing

The Game Commission is ready to trot out its heralded electronic "point-of-sale" hunting license system following the Pa. House of Representatives passage of House Bill 92.

PGC Executive Director Carl Roe said he hopes for Senate passage of HB 92 so the agency can move forward.

License-buyers would pay the actual transaction fee of 70 cents per license or stamp directly to ALS, the company contracted to provide the electronic license sale system for the Game Commission and the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission.

When the 2009-10 licenses go on sale in mid- June, license buyers will swipe their driver's license through a magnetic reader and all of their personal information will be filled in on the application automatically.

Hunters and trappers then will be able to select the licenses and stamps they want to purchase. Residents without a driver's license, as well as non-residents, will key-enter the data the first time they purchase a license.

License-buyers will be assigned a permanent customer identification number stored in an electronic file. In subsequent years, they only will need to enter changes in the types of licenses or stamps wanted or update their personal information.

"Point-of-sale will make license buying easier for our customers, issuing agents and the Game Commission, and will for the first time in our history provide the agency with a database of its license buyers that will enable us to better communicate with them," Roe said.

Issuing agents stand to benefit, as the new system will audit the books for them while they work, he added.

"The database will enable the agency to conduct more surveys of our license buyers," Roe said. "The Game Commission will be able to reduce our harvest reporting costs by enabling hunters to report harvests online or through a toll-free telephone number, as we will have the database to validate submissions."