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Delays at King Shaka International Airport linked to ‘challenges’ with new biometric system, says Acsa

Delays at King Shaka International Airport linked to ‘challenges’ with new biometric system, says Acsa
Victoria O’Regan
By Victoria O’Regan
4 Aug 2024
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Airports Company South Africa says a technical team is working on improving the situation at the airport.

Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) has said delays in processing passengers at King Shaka International Airport (KSIA) are linked to “post-implementation challenges” with a new biometric control system. 

In a statement on Saturday, 3 August, the state-owned airports operator responded to recent media reports about delays in processing travellers at King Shaka International, “linking these to the biometric and digital identity technology”.

Acsa manages South Africa’s nine principal airports, including OR Tambo International in Gauteng, Cape Town International in the Western Cape and King Shaka International in KwaZulu-Natal. 

According to the statement, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the Border Management Agency (BMA) are implementing the Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS) at the immigration and emigration points in three of Acsa’s airports. Acsa said the system was rolled out at OR Tambo International and Cape Town International in 2022. 

“We can confirm that the BMCS, which was introduced at KSIA in the last few weeks, has been experiencing post-implementation challenges, causing long queues in the immigration areas,” it said.

“The BMA’s technical team is working on improving the situation by, amongst others, increasing the bandwidth to ensure the system remains online and reducing the manual processing of passengers. 

“Acsa and BMA apologise to passengers for the delays and inconvenience caused.” 

It was not immediately clear when the system would be fixed. 




In December 2023, the French technology company Idemia announced that it had been awarded a contract by Acsa to introduce biometric technology at nine South African airports by 2026. It said the biometric solutions deployed at these airports would “enhance the quality of services offered to passengers all along their journey, from the check-in to the boarding of the plane”.

Idemia describes itself as the “global leader in augmented identity”, with a presence in 180 countries and revenue of €3-billion, according to its website. The company offers both enterprise and “government solutions”.

However, the company has a history of failure to deliver services in South Africa. Idemia has, for years, been at the centre of a bungled attempt to implement an Automated Biometric Identity System (Abis) programme for the DHA. After repeated delays in delivering the system, News24 reported in December 2023 that Idemia was being charged penalties by the DHA.

Acsa has repeatedly defended the procurement processes that were followed in awarding the contract to Idemia. 

“Having followed a prudent procurement process, the contract to the value of R115-million was awarded to Idemia. It required that at least 30% of the contract value be subcontracted to a South African, black-owned Exempted Micro Enterprise (EME) and/or Qualified Small Enterprise (QSE). As such, the winning bidder had a teaming agreement with a local company called InfoVerge as its black-owned EME/QSE partner (B-BBEE partner) for purposes of complying with EME/QSE requirements in the RFP,” Acsa said on Saturday. 

Acsa said it “became aware of an impasse between the two business partners Idemia and InfoVerge and engaged both companies with a view to foster an amicable resolution and in the interest of delivering on the contract”.

“Despite Acsa’s efforts, the two business partners could not reach an amicable resolution,” it said. This had resulted in InfoVerge approaching the Gauteng High Court, “seeking relief to set aside Acsa’s decision to award the tender for the provision of [the] automated border control project to Idemia”. 

“It is important to categorically state that the matter is a contractual dispute between InfoVerge and Idemia, and there is no allegation of irregularities regarding Acsa’s procurement processes in the current legal proceedings before the High Court,” it added.

“Notwithstanding the current challenges,” Acsa was “excited about the prospects of the biometric and digital identity technology that is being procured.”

The problems with digital identity systems at King Shaka Airport come less than a week after flights were unable to land or depart from Cape Town International Airport for several hours on Sunday, 29 July, because of a power supply issue. 

Read in Daily Maverick: Flights resume at Cape Town airport after Sunday power outage, probe under way

The power supply problems had affected runway lights, airside fire rescue and air traffic navigation services. Acsa said the cause of the outage was being investigated.

In response to questions from Daily Maverick, a spokesperson for Idemia clarified on Monday afternoon that Idemia’s biometric system is not the cause of passenger delays at King Shaka International Airport as the deployment of its system “has not yet begun”.

“Idemia’s biometric system deployment has not yet begun. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Acsa to provide the next-generation passenger facilitation biometric system, which will be deployed later this year.” DM

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