Home Affairs wants to add digital biometrics to South African passport

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

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Big change proposed for South African passports

South Africa's Department of Home Affairs wants to upgrade the country's passport to be more secure and better aligned with other nations by adding digital biometrics.

Speaking to eNCA about how South Africa's passport has climbed the Henley Passport Index ranks, Minister Leon Schreiber said Home Affairs must do more to secure the document further.
 
about time, the less its easy to steal and copy and make fake passports the sooner other countries will allow us visa-free travel or automatic e-visas etc.

Amazing how a change in who runs the place can help. Previous leadership was more interested in how to have tenders approved for their family for R500-a-piece toilet rolls.

Now someone is actually focusing on something positive to help South Africans.
 
About time South Africa moved towards the ePassport!

The ICAO has an interesting article which outlines the basics of ePassport's. I read it a few years back when my Canadian passport arrived via mail. Found it to be an interesting read. Was intrigued at the similarity with the SSL certificate chain.

ePassport Basics

www.icao.int www.icao.int
 
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We should be able to get up about another 20-30 extra countries for easy access also.
 
Corelli said:
We should be able to get up about another 20-30 extra countries for easy access also.
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It just makes things easier. I travel to Japan regularly and cant use the machines to pick up my high speed train passes - it uses the nfc chip to verify its a foreign passport. So you end up standing in a line that could take an hour.

Same for flights, many countries you can do exit immigration yourself using the nfc chip and face verify.

It's first world problems for sure, but the SA passport really needs this. I just agree that this probably wont happen anytime soon.
 
whatwhat said:
It just makes things easier. I travel to Japan regularly and cant use the machines to pick up my high speed train passes - it uses the nfc chip to verify its a foreign passport. So you end up standing in a line that could take an hour.

Same for flights, many countries you can do exit immigration yourself using the nfc chip and face verify.

It's first world problems for sure, but the SA passport really needs this. I just agree that this probably wont happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...
Why dont you use the Japan Rail Pass, unless you dont need it so often? I use the Suica card app on the iphone to tap and pay for the trains. Works like a charm.

Have you used Klook yet? I use it a lot when in Asia. Airalo I use as an esim.
 
I know the lead player of the so called GNU very well, this isn't keeping up with the world, this is another money grab by a criminal and bankrupt government.
 
Corelli said:
Why dont you use the Japan Rail Pass, unless you dont need it so often? I use the Suica card app on the iphone to tap and pay for the trains. Works like a charm.

Have you used Klook yet? I use it a lot when in Asia. Airalo I use as an esim.
Click to expand...

It is the rail pass. You need to identify as a foreigner to get it, and the ticket pickup machine uses the nfc chip in the passport. If it's cheaper to just buy tickets without the pass then I just buy eSuica and bind it to my watch.

If no nfc chip, you need to go show it to them to get the pass. Same with landing and leaving Japan and other countries, I cannot clear immigration with the automated gates and need to stand in the line where they only have 1 person working.
 
Bad Ballie said:
I know the lead player of the so called GNU very well, this isn't keeping up with the world, this is another money grab by a criminal and bankrupt government.
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In SA government, everything is a cadre money grab.

But this needs to be done - 174 countries have ePassport, and 199 passports are considered when it comes to passport ranking.
South Africa is really so far behind.
 
whatwhat said:
It just makes things easier. I travel to Japan regularly and cant use the machines to pick up my high speed train passes - it uses the nfc chip to verify its a foreign passport. So you end up standing in a line that could take an hour.

Same for flights, many countries you can do exit immigration yourself using the nfc chip and face verify.

It's first world problems for sure, but the SA passport really needs this. I just agree that this probably wont happen anytime soon.
Click to expand...
PR yet? Take the plunge and go through all the jazz to get that HK passport.
 
why are we so behind?, is it just purely corruption, or is there more to it, that we become a Chinese satellite state almost, and they want us poor, uneducated and isolated.

because as you point out, everybody and their dog has a biometric passport, even places worse than us.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
why are we so behind?, is it just purely corruption, or is there more to it, that we become a Chinese satellite state almost, and they want us poor, uneducated and isolated.

because as you point out, everybody and their dog has a biometric passport, even places worse than us.
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Leave the "china bad" outside, this is purely an anc problem. If it was an actual china thing, they would actually preferred to have everything digitised so that it's easier to track people.
 
You can have all the physical security features you want on a passport document, but it doesn't make an ounce of difference if the people who issue them can bypass the processes involved in the issuing of those passports and issue real passports to people who shouldn't be getting them.
 
deweyzeph said:
You can have all the physical security features you want on a passport document, but it doesn't make an ounce of difference if the people who issue them can bypass the processes involved in the issuing of those passports and issue real passports to people who shouldn't be getting them.
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Yes. I would guess that these additonal security in the passport would make that a little harder for insiders to give passports to people, which is why SA is stuck in the dark ages.
 
whatwhat said:
It is the rail pass. You need to identify as a foreigner to get it, and the ticket pickup machine uses the nfc chip in the passport. If it's cheaper to just buy tickets without the pass then I just buy eSuica and bind it to my watch.

If no nfc chip, you need to go show it to them to get the pass. Same with landing and leaving Japan and other countries, I cannot clear immigration with the automated gates and need to stand in the line where they only have 1 person working.
Click to expand...
Also at Immigration (Narita Airport) you cannot use the smart machines and need to go in the queue.
"Passport No IC, Passport No IC - go to stand in line" 🥴
Works at the Dubai smart immigration machines just fine.
 
whatwhat said:
Yes. I would guess that these additonal security in the passport would make that a little harder for insiders to give passports to people, which is why SA is stuck in the dark ages.
Click to expand...

The current passport is actually incredibly secure from a forgery point of view. You simply cannot forge the plastic bio page of the current passport, there is too much laser engraving, holographic and other security features. It's way easier just to bribe a Home Affairs official than it is to mess around with trying to create a forged passport.

From what I've seen, there are 2 different ways that undesirable people are getting their hands on real South African passports:

1) They are bribing Home Affairs officials to use the details of a real South African citizen already registered on the population register and then substituting the biometrics of the genuine South African citizen with those of the undesirable person when the passport application is made.

2) They are bribing Home Affairs officials to basically do a late birth registration to introduce the undesirable person's details into the population register by issuing them with a birth certificate to which they have no right to. From there it's then an easy hop to issuing ID and passport documents.

This is essentially one of the major reasons why so many first world countries still require visas from South African citizens. They simply don't trust that when someone presents a South African passport that they are actually a South African citizen.
 
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