Home Affairs pushes SA closer to digital ID with verification system facelift

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is taking a victory lap after it announced that its once-problematic and inefficient digital verification system had undergone a much-needed upgrade.

The system is used by government institutions like the South African Social Security Agency and National Treasury, and companies in the financial sector to verify the identities of their clients against the National Population Register.

On Monday, DHA revealed that the system had been plagued by up to a 50% failure rate on verification hits against the National Population Register, which took up to 24 hours to respond and often gave responses filled with errors.

However, the rollout of a comprehensive upgrade has made the system faster and more efficient, with an error rate of under 1%. The government and private sector can now use biometric features like fingerprints and facial recognition against the National Population Register.

“This marks the most significant upgrade to the Home Affairs verification service since it was launched, and will dramatically reduce waiting times whenever a client needs to verify their identity with the department to obtain a social grant or open a bank account,” said Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber.

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Dawn of digitalisation

Schreiber said the upgrade would protect the National Population Registry against fraud and increase the speed with which the government and companies roll out services while also paving the way for his department’s smart ID cards (SIDCs) project.

“This investment in our population register is not only overdue but also important for delivering on the vision for digital ID, as outlined by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address, as a secure and efficient population register forms the cornerstone of digital ID,” said Schreiber.

Since taking the helm of the DHA, Schreiber has made it his mission to make the department more efficient through digitalisation. One key way he aims to accomplish this is through the phasing out of SA’s “green mamba” ID book in favour of a smart ID, a process the DHA hopes to have completed by the end of 2025.

However, the process has been marred by technical challenges, particularly for permanent residents and naturalised citizens, which has made the more secure form of identity inaccessible to this group.

Schreiber revealed this when responding to a parliamentary question from African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) MP Wayne Thring.

“Failures by the current IT service provider have emerged as a serious obstacle infringing on the department’s ability to deliver the required changes to enable naturalised citizens and permanent residents to obtain SIDCs and is being addressed with the necessary urgency,” wrote Schreiber.

The revitalised system will usher in a fee increase for private customers, who will be charged more for identity verification. Schreiber said the increase was necessary to maintain the system. The new fees will come into effect on 1 April, but public service providers will be exempt from the increase. DM