South Africa’s government is trailing a new identification system in the country set to enable South Africans move around with a multipurpose identity card.
The smart ID that promises to speed up government services while cutting down on crime and corruption is the country’s National Identity System designed to integrate the entire current identification documents including the civic and immigration identity cards.
Speaking in Pretoria last week, the Home Affairs Director-General Mkuseli Apleni said South Africans will need just one card for all their official documentation requirements including identities, licences, National Health Insurance, social grants and the smart ID was it.
Recent studies by the South African government show the cities are safe although criminals take advantage of the large populations to engage in violence and theft, as well as other related activities the new IDs is expected to end.
Crime rate has been high within the country’s major cities including Pretoria and Johannesburg. According to the 2011 South African Police Service (SAPS) crime statistics indicate that home invasions reported were up to 7,039 reported in Gauteng Province alone — Johannesburg and Pretoria are found in the province.
The National Identity system will also help the Department capture biometric and biographical data of all South African citizens, residents and foreign nationals, and is set to curb insecurity.
Apleni said the pilot project set for launch will involve issuing out over 2000 smart IDs to test the smartcards’ systems, hardware and software.
This would enable the government to procure the required machinery to produce the volume of cards that will be required, so that we eventually completely phase out the current green bar-coded ID to be phased out in four years, according to Apleni.
Apleni added that, after all the systems are in place to produce the smart cards, including the cost estimates for all citizens then all new ID applications would be treated as applications for smart IDs. The smart card ID will not cost South Africans more than the old ones.
This follows the Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s statement last month that new ID applicants in 2013 would be issued with smart IDs.
Meanwhile, more than 29000 South Africans who could not engage in business, financial and economic transactions as well as further their educational studies, access social grants and other government services due to wrong information on their IDs, would now according to the minister, use an SMS service to track them.
