{"id":604463,"date":"2025-07-30T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=604463"},"modified":"2025-07-30T07:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:42:13","slug":"big-upgrades-for-online-smart-id-and-passport-applications-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/604463-big-upgrades-for-online-smart-id-and-passport-applications-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Big upgrades for online smart ID and passport applications in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Department of Home Affairs will roll out various IT upgrades this week as it works to improve the efficiency of its systems and the eHomeAffairs platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to 702<\/a>, Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber said the upgrades will address bugs and introduce new features to reduce frustration for his department and South Africans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Obviously, we also have longer-term work to produce still as it pertains to basic things like connectivity,” the minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that his department would leverage communications minister Solly Malatsi’s recently gazetted regulations, allowing it to seek solutions outside the State Information Technology Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is comprehensive work going on in this particular respect,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schreiber explained that through Home Affairs’ partnership with banks, and the eHomeAffairs platform, the department is following a “basic decentralisation approach”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s a basic decentralisation approach where you give people more options through their local bank branch and also ultimately through their smartphone or banking app,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Then that takes people out of the queue at Home Affairs. It lessens the load on our system, and we can start getting the thing under control.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister acknowledged the challenges faced with the eHomeAffairs platform, an online system that lets South Africans book to renew their passport or get a smart ID at a bank branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister explained that, before South Africa can phase out the green barcoded ID book, Home Affairs must first upgrade the eHomeAffairs platform and expand its partnerships with banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The biggest cause for frustration is that people can’t find booking slots,” said Schreiber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In a way that’s hugely frustrating, but it’s also telling us there is massive demand for this service. That’s why booking slots are always full.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said this is why the department prioritised scaling up its presence in bank branches, aiming to reach 100 branches by 31 March 2026, and 1,000 branches over the medium term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are currently finalising some of these arrangements. We hope to be soon able to announce the first breakthroughs in our partnerships with the banks,” the minister stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 million smart ID cards to go<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Leon Schreiber, South African Minister of Home Affairs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the Department of Home Affairs has made significant progress in making smart ID cards available to more South Africans, it is still many years away<\/a> from invalidating the green ID book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schreiber has highlighted the fraud risks associated with the older form of identity document several times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we want to make progress against fraud and identity theft, if we want to secure our country, we want to move away from the green ID,” he said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the smart ID card was first introduced in 2013, the department estimated that around 38 million ID books were in circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It initially planned to replace all of those documents between 2018 and 2022, but as of March 2025, only about 29.6 million cards had been issued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This latest figure includes many first-time ID applicants who would not have been included in the original 38-million estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schreiber recently revealed that the estimated number of outstanding green ID books was roughly 18 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reiterated this figure in the interview, adding that he believes the green ID book will be invalidated by the end of the current administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But it does depend, of course, on whether we get all 18 million people who still have the green ID book to get the alternative,” added Schreiber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That puts the new target at about 48 million, and means the department’s smart ID card replacement project is only about 62% complete after 12 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Home Affairs has announced that it will roll out various IT upgrades to its sytems and the eHomeAffairs platform this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":453364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18668],"tags":[36099,6535,36436,95595,1703,100396,78048,62962],"class_list":["post-604463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bank-branches","tag-department-of-home-affairs","tag-ehomeaffairs","tag-green-id-book","tag-home-affairs","tag-home-affairs-bank-branches","tag-leon-schreiber","tag-smart-id-card"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604546,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604463\/revisions\/604546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}