Is this going to stop Ghosting?

The new 2025 DVSA trial photographing vehicles whilst having an MOT test, by Simon Powney, Markhams Garage LTD, Kingsland, Herefordshire. 

I received an email from the DVSA asking me if we would be interested in trialling the new test procedures involving photographing the vehicle during the mot test, and of course I replied stating we would be interested. A few months later I received another email stating that we had been picked to be part of the phase 2 trial. I am pleased to be involved at an early stage, and it gives all of our testers the opportunity to help shape the scheme for when the trial has finished.   

We Started our trial on the 7th of June 2025; we have 3 testers who each work one week in 3 in the test bay so it would be a week before I got my chance to test the system. 

The week was fine, I was a little apprehensive over the sequences of logging the test in but the system seemed to flow quite nicely. The test is logged as per usual, a vehicle inspection sheet printed if required, ( we do this for every test as it is a good way to keep all paperwork in order along with mandatory emission printout sheets ) and then the next stage is the take a photo of the vehicle stage. 

A picture pops up on the screen of what is a good image and what is a bad image. Basically, you must take a photo of the complete front or rear of the vehicle sat in your test bay and this is done with a QR code popping up on the screen prior to logging out of the system. 

All that is required is to open your camera on your smartphone, point it at the QR code and click on the link, alongside the QR code is a 4-digit pin number, this must be entered after following the link for security etc.  

Once this is entered the software will ask you to allow access to the camera to take a photo, and an image can be taken, again once you are happy with this you can upload to DVSA. You don’t have to worry about lots of images filling your phone as nothing is saved into your album. One issue we had with this is that you have 5 minutes from clicking this link to taking the photo, normally fine but it is easy to be distracted by customers, telephones or someone parking in front of the MOT bay! 

The test is then carried out as normal and, in our case, we use connected equipment, so all readings again sent to computer from brake/emission tester for when you log back in to pass or fail the vehicle. 

When it comes to reviewing your inputted data, you can check your image at the end if you feel the need. 

So overall quite a simple process, if you are unable to capture an image though you must give a reason why it was not possible to do this, but in our experience, it only happened twice whilst we were getting used to the system. 

Will it help to reduce ghost MOT’s, in my opinion, yes. It will help the situation as it makes it more difficult for fraudsters to cheat the system. It doesn’t really take much more additional time so I welcome these changes when it comes into the mainstream, as I’m sure most credible garages will. I wonder what is coming next, as the possibilities are endless – hopefully a rise in the test fee as this is long overdue!