Bad news about digital driving licences

South Africa’s digital driving licence seems likely to be delayed well beyond its original planned rollout timeframe — the end of March 2025.

Electronic driving licences (eDLs) stored on a smartphone could make it far more convenient for motorists to renew their cards and ensure they have them whenever they drive.

For several years, the application, issuing, and printing of physical licence cards have been plagued by issues like corruption and technical malfunctions of the driving licence card printer.

The first indication that the country would get eDLs came in the Driving Licence Card Account’s (DLCA’s) annual performance plan for 2021/2022.

The DLCA is the entity under the Department of Transport (DoT) that is responsible for the printing of driving licence cards.

Former Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula confirmed the government’s intention to introduce an electronic driving licence in March 2022, which is now almost three years ago.

Mbalula said that the eDL’s rollout would follow the introduction of a new physical card, which he said was “set to be launched” in October 2023.

The former minister said in the 2024/2025 financial year, motorists would start having the option to either get a physical licence card or a digital licence when renewing their document.

Mbalula’s successor — Sindisiwe Chikunga — announced a revised timeline under which the physical card would be piloted from November 2023 and fully introduced by the end of March 2024.

Automated driving licence applications and eDL’s were set to follow over the next three years up to the 2025/2026 financial year.

However, the company appointed to provide the technology and printers for the new physical licence card — Idemia — was only chosen in August 2024, nearly a year after the new physical card pilot was supposed to begin.

In addition, the tender process under which the French firm won the contract to supply the equipment and cards became the subject of an investigation by the Auditor-General of South Africa.

That came after the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) called on current transport minister Barbara Creecy to probe alleged suspicious developments around the procurement.

Outa alleged the bid was rigged to favour Idemia and has bemoaned the cost of the contract ballooning from R468 million to as much as R899 million.

Creecy has since revealed that the cost of the three printers producing the new cards will be over R1 billion.

eDLs don’t make government money — Road laws expert

MyBroadband asked the Department of Transport whether it would still launch a digital driving licence before the end of the current financial year or whether this would require the new physical licence cards to be rolled out first.

The department had not responded to our query by the time of publication.

In September 2024, DoT spokesperson Collen Msibi told Newzroom Afrika that the eDL was still on the agenda but that budgetary constraints pushed the rollout back to the “outer years.”

Msibi argued that significant infrastructure would be required to support the eDL — including licence-scanning devices for traffic officers.

Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage recently told CapeTalk that the AG’s report had been completed and was handed over to current transport minister Barbara Creecy.

She is expected to make an announcement on its findings in mid-January.

However, Driving.co.za managing director Rob Handfield-Jones believes there is a more sinister reason delaying a digital driving licence.

“There is no technological or practical obstacle to digital licensing and enforcement,” he previously told MyBroadband.

“Rather, the problem is the Road Traffic Management Corporation’s refusal to give up the revenue streams that go with analogue document production.”

eDLs are still fairly new, with only Denmark, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, and several states in the US having adopted the digital documents.

Some of these countries use a proprietary app and QR code for the licence. Traffic officials can scan the code to confirm the validity of the licence, similar to what they would do with a physical card.

In other cases, the licences can be downloaded and stored in a digital mobile wallet — like the Apple Wallet on iPhones.

Handfield-Jones said the infrastructure to support digital licences was already available in South Africa and that they could be integrated into the current licencing regime with no issue.

The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act requires that all traffic officers carry a digital terminal that can scan licence barcodes — which would include those that are shown on a smartphone screen.

In addition, nearly all modern smartphones with a camera and Internet connection can scan these codes.

“It’s nonsense, but the government has somehow been permitted to advance a narrative that a driving licence is different to almost every other official document,” Handfield-Jones said.

“This is because licence card renewals are a money-making racket.”