New biometric verification system to transform Home Affairs services from April

THE Department of Home Affairs announced on Monday that it is rolling out a comprehensive upgrade to their digital verification system that sits at the heart of national security as well as both public and private sector services in South Africa.

"This verification system that enables government departments ranging from National Treasury to the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), as well as businesses in the financial sector, to verify the identities of clients using biometric features like fingerprints and facial recognition against the national population register," the department said.

The department confirmed that the use of this system will come at an extra cost to companies in the private sector and will come into effect on April 1. However public sector users, including government departments and agencies, will remain exempt from these new fees.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, emphasised the importance of this upgrade, stating, “The rollout of a reliable, efficient, and secure verification service supports both the public and private sectors to improve service delivery. 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.”

Schreiber said: "The launch of the reformed verification system is further proof of the progress that Home Affairs is making on our journey of digital transformation to deliver dignity for all.”

Schreiber acknowledged the delays and failures of his department and further said: "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.”

The department said they have made serious efforts in ensuring that this system is less erratic, with tests showing that it is capable of dramatically faster performance and delivers an error rate of well below 1%.

The system previously left users frustrated when it used to take up to 24 hours to give responses which were most of the times erratic and required a long process of manual verification. The system often produced errors, with a failure rate of up to 50% - rendering it ineffective and past its sell-by-date.