Pretoria: The Department of Home Affairs has announced a significant upgrade to its digital verification system, a vital aspect of national security and public and private sector services in South Africa.
According to South African Government News Agency, the verification system allows government departments, including National Treasury and the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), as well as businesses in the financial sector, to verify client identities using biometric features such as fingerprints and facial recognition against the National Population Register. In recent years, the system faced challenges with inefficiencies, experiencing a failure rate of up to 50% on verification attempts and response times extending up to 24 hours. Additionally, responses often contained errors requiring manual verification.
The Department of Home Affairs has worked to address these issues, and testing has shown that the upgraded system now delivers significantly faster performance with an error rate well below 1%. The department is prepared to roll out access to the improved verification service to clients across both public and private sectors.
To ensure ongoing maintenance of the improved system, Home Affairs Minister Dr. Leon Schreiber, with concurrence from the Minister of Finance, has announced a new set of fees for the verification service. Starting 1 April 2025, fees for private sector companies will increase for the first time in over a decade. Public sector users, including government departments and agencies, will remain exempt from these fees.
This strategy allows the Department of Home Affairs to invest in the National Population Register without impacting public finances negatively. Minister Schreiber emphasized the importance of the upgrade, noting that it supports both public and private sectors in enhancing service delivery and reducing waiting times for identity verification necessary for activities such as obtaining social grants or opening bank accounts.
Schreiber highlighted the impact of the system’s inefficiencies on the financial sector, stressing the importance of the investment in the population register for economic growth and digital transformation. The upgraded system aligns with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s vision for digital ID as outlined in the State of the Nation Address, providing a secure and efficient population register essential for digital ID.
The launch of the upgraded verification system marks a milestone in Home Affairs’ digital transformation journey, aimed at delivering dignity for all South Africans.