Home Affairs upgrades digital verification system
The Department says in recent years, its system has been plagued by inefficiencies, with users reporting a failure rate of up to 50% on verification against the national population register.
Picture: Sethembiso Zulu/Eyewitness News
CAPE TOWN - The Department of Home Affairs has announced the rollout of a new and comprehensive upgrade to the digital verification system.
The department said the upgrade "sits at the heart of national security" and will see the verification of fingerprints and facial recognition against the national population register.
It said in recent years, its system has been plagued by inefficiencies, with users reporting a failure rate of up to 50% on verification against the national population register.
Home Affairs said it previously took up to 24 hours for their system to respond to verifications and when responses did arrive, they were "littered with errors".
It said thanks to "diligent" work by the department over the past few months, these errors are now set to become a thing of the past.
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The upgraded verification system enables government departments as well as businesses in the financial sector, to verify the identities of clients using biometric features like fingerprints and facial recognition against the national population register.
Minister Leon Schreiber said the investment in the population register is not only overdue but also important for delivering on government's vision for digital ID.
"This marks the most significant upgrade to the Home Affairs verification service since it was launched, and will dramatically reduce waiting times whenever a client needs to verify their identity with the department to obtain a social grant or open a bank account," said Schreiber.
He said testing has confirmed that the upgraded system is not only capable of dramatically faster performance, but that it now delivers an error rate of well below one percent.