Good news about smart IDs and digital driving licences in South Africa

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber’s vision for a digital identity system for South Africa is a single platform that acts as a secure digital wallet for IDs, passports, driving licences, and other documents.

The country’s Department of Transport (DoT) has plans for a digital driving licence system, but it has yet to come to fruition and likely won’t roll out until well beyond its planned rollout deadline — 31 March 2025.

However, combining it with the country’s digital identity system could be promising.

Giving his State of the Nation Address debate speech on 11 February 2025, Schreiber said such a system would help eliminate identity fraud and fraudulent payments of social grants and NSFAS funding.

He also said going digital will make identity theft a thing of the past and enhance the power of the South African passport to gain visa-free access to more countries.

Schreiber wants to create a “secure digital wallet for IDs, passports, drivers’ licences, educational certificates, and other official documents”.

The Minister acknowledged that these changes will not be quick to implement but reiterated that his department is working flat-out to enable Home Affairs @ home as soon as possible.

Through the Home Affairs @ home initiative, Schreiber wants to make the department’s processes entirely digital to eliminate the need for South Africans to visit Home Affairs branches.

“We will introduce the option to have IDs and passports securely delivered to the doorsteps of our clients, in the same way that banks already deliver debit and credit cards,” he said.

The Department of Home Affairs currently offers smart ID and passport renewal services at 30 bank branches nationwide. Schreiber said he intends to expand these services to hundreds of bank branches.

“We will engage with banks and retails to dramatically expand the successful pilot project that delivers Home Affairs services in some bank branches,” he said.

“This project works but has been limited to only 30 branches for the past decade. I now want to expand it to hundreds or even a thousand bank branches.”

He said this would help enhance access to these services and ensure that South Africans in rural and urban areas can visit their local bank branch to get a new ID or passport.

The Minister previously said expanding Home Affairs services to more bank branches across the country is a priority for 2025.

Phasing out green ID books

The South African government wants to phase out the country’s older green ID booklets. However, before it can do so, it must first ensure that all qualifying South Africans can get a smart ID card.

A significant challenge with this is an “IT block” preventing naturalised citizens and permanent residents from getting the newer smart ID card.

“As part of expanding access and inclusion, we are working to ensure that every person who is legally entitled to a smart ID is able to get one by fixing the IT block that currently still forces naturalised citizens and permanent residents to use the less-secure green ID books,” said Schreiber.

Naturalised citizens can only apply for the smart ID card through an invitation from the director-general for Home Affairs, while permanent residents cannot get the document.

South Africa introduced the smart ID card in 2013 to gradually replace the old document within three years of its launch.

The goal was for all South Africans to hold smart ID cards within six to eight years after they launched in 2013.

At the time, there were roughly 38 million green ID bookholders in the country, and Home Affairs has been far behind the rate required to produce the number of smart ID cards needed to replace them by the 2019 to 2021 deadline.

However, the department has drastically increased its production rate since adopting its Home Affairs @ Home plan.

In early February 2025, Schreiber updated its production numbers, revealing that Home Affairs had produced 2.7 million smart ID cards in just two quarters.

It issued 970,543 smart ID cards between 1 October and 31 December 2024, against a target of 575,000 cards, representing a 69% overperformance.

Earlier in the year, between 1 July and 30 September 2024, the department issued 892,125 smart IDs against a target of 625,000 — an overperformance of 43%.

For reference, the Department of Home Affairs was targeting 2.5 million smart ID cards for the entire 2024/25 financial year.