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| The old green barcoded ID that will be replaced soon. Source:southafrica-newyork.net |
The South African Minister of Home Affairs,Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced on 25 April that her department is aiming to replace the old green Identity documents (ID) with the new smartcards.
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| Minister of Home affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma shows off her new smartcard. Source:eyewitnessnews.co.za |
The minister emphasised that the smartcard will go a long way towards stamping out corruption in the Home Affairs department, she said that this is more like a transition from the dompass to the smartcard. The smartcard will allow citizens to have modern identification cards rather than the outdated book, which is easy to forge. The card is not easy to forge, it is easy to distinguish between the forged and the real card. The card would be linked to a system containing all the department's data including the population register and information register on refugees and immigrants. The pilot phase roll out to the public would start with people applying for identification documents for the first time. The machines the department had for the project were "small" and able to roll out only about R3 million cards a year. The pilot phase will be active in full force hence they still need more machines which would take 18 months to manufacture to the departments specifications then in the next 2 years the bigger roll-out will take place. The first face of the project will cost about R5 million. The second face, with the larger still-to-be-built printing machines would raise the cost of the project. Home Affairs officials will be able to read information on a card by placing it close to a mobile reader that used a radio frequency to communcate with the chip. The reader would also take a person's fingerprints and instantly provide identity details to the officials.
I am proud of the department and its plans for us the citizens but, am I the only one who is wondering though as to,what took them so long to implement this...?
