Islamabad Police Promoting Terrible Safety App to Citizens That Doesn't Even Work

The Islamabad Police is promoting a terrible taxi safety app to citizens that hardly works and has little point. In our personal testing at ProPakistani, the app failed to register an account and has dozens of similar negative reviews due to similar issues on the Google Play Store. The app is called the Taxi Verification System (TVS) and is supposed to let passengers verify a taxi and its driver before starting a journey. But its biggest limitation is that it only works with drivers who are registered on the app. This significantly reduces its usefulness and raises an obvious question: why would a driver with malicious intentions voluntarily register with an Islamabad Police app designed to verify their identity? There is also no guarantee that every taxi driver operating in the capital will register. In fact, only around 13,000 drivers have reportedly signed up so far, more than a year after the app was originally launched in July 2025. This leaves a significant gap in the system's ability to verify the people citizens actually encounter when looking for a taxi. Registration Doesn't Work I personally tried registering an account on the TVS app, but the process repeatedly failed, displaying a 'Something went wrong' error every single time. Take a look at the screenshot below. This does not appear to be an isolated problem. The app's Google Play Store page contains negative reviews from users reporting similar difficulties, particularly problems registering accounts and logging in. One user even reported that their login request had remained pending for more than 10 months. Other users are running into errors that either say 'user not found' or 'weak internet connection.' What's The Point? Another problem is that the app's main purpose overlaps with features already available in popular ride-hailing services such as Yango and InDrive. These platforms already allow passengers to check the driver's identity and vehicle details before getting into a car. Passengers can compare the information displayed in their booking with the driver and vehicle that arrive at their pickup location. Malicious drivers can easily fake this information on ride-hailing apps, but what's stopping them from doing the same thing on TVS? A Safety App Needs to Work First Islamabad Police's intention to improve passenger safety is understandable. However, promoting a mobile app as a safety solution is not enough. The system needs to be accessible, reliable, and capable of covering the people it is supposed to protect. A verification system that only recognizes registered drivers cannot guarantee the safety of passengers travelling with unregistered ones. Similarly, an app that struggles with basic registration and login functions makes it harder for citizens to benefit from the service. Until these problems are addressed and the system provides meaningful coverage beyond already registered ride-hailing vehicles, the TVS app risks becoming another public-sector mobile application that looks useful on paper but offers limited practical value to citizens.