South Africans saying “no thanks” to smart ID cards

Many South African citizens are reluctant to travel to Home Affairs to apply for their smart ID cards due to the long queues at its branches across the country, and others don’t believe they should be forced to pay for the new document.

Newzroom Afrika interviewed citizens about their hesitation in applying for a new ID. The primary causes for concern were the cost of applying and the long wait times.

“Sometimes when you get to Home Affairs, the queues are long, even if you wake up at 04:00,” one citizen said.

“Even if you pay someone to hold the line for you, you still don’t get assistance.”

Other citizens believe they should get the smart ID for free as the government decided to change the documents, not them.

“I’m not willing to pay R140 to change it. They changed the system, so they need to give me the first one for free, and then if I lose it, I’ll pay for it,” another interviewee said.

“I’m not willing to pay because they changed the system.”

However, the Department of Home Affairs says South Africans must put their security first and heed the call to switch to the newer document.

According to the department, the security features of the barcoded green ID booklets are not at the same level as the security of the smart ID card.

It said it hasn’t observed any cases where a smart ID card has been manipulated or reproduced.

The green ID booklet has been used as the country’s primary identity document for 44 years, and it has only received minor security updates since its introduction.

As a result, they are commonly targeted and forged by fraudsters. 

According to Smile ID’s Digital Identity Fraud report for 2024, its Know-Your-Customer checks flagged fraud in approximately 34% of cases where South African ID books were used to access different services.

It said national IDs are popular targets as they are the most common form of government identification and are mandatory for most adults.

While smart ID cards have enhanced security features, Smile ID ironically said that switching to the new document could increase fraud, at least for as long as the old document remains valid.

“Logistical issues around properly discarding the older IDs can lead to them falling into the wrong hands,” it said.

“An excellent example is South Africa, where the older green ID book saw significant fraud targeting.”

When South Africans receive their smart ID cards, they are meant to hand over the old green ID booklet to be destroyed. However, this doesn’t always happen, leading to opportunities for fraud.

This could either be due to incompetence or corrupt officials.

Never queue at Home Affairs again

In August 2024, home affairs minister Leon Schreiber revealed his plans to digitally transform the department, which has branches that still use 2Mbps Internet connections.

“If there were more hours in a day, I would use them all. I am obsessed with this particular issue because it can be fixed,” said Schreiber.

“One of the fundamental problems is something as elementary as bandwidth. We’re sitting with offices that have 2Mbps lines in the year 2024.”

He said comparisons between branches with slow Internet connections and those with high-speed lines revealed that the latter have significantly less downtime.

“You cannot imagine the difference it makes. It solves a large majority of the ‘system offline’ challenges that we have,” said Schreiber.

He added that he is engaging with communications minister Solly Malatsi to determine how Home Affairs can work more effectively with the State Information Technology Agency.

Part of his plan includes developing a platform to eliminate the need for in-person visits to Home Affairs branches.

Schreiber’s vision is to modernise and automate the department’s current paper-based, manual processes, which would also help tackle fraud issues.

“It is only possible for someone to steal an ID number or engage in fraudulent activity like swapping out photos because the system has gaps that allow for human intervention,” he said.

“Until such time as Home Affairs has been transformed into a digital-first department, these abuses will keep happening and ‘the system will remain offline.'”