The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is targeting a total phase-out of the production of green bar-coded ID books for smart IDs by the end of the year, says minister Dr Leon Schreiber.
This is despite 18 million citizens still needing to convert to the smart identity documents, the minister told 702’s Bongani Bingwa.
First introduced in 2013, the smart ID cards are a key pillar of the DHA’s modernisation programme, replacing the traditional green ID books for South African citizens. They are also aimed at curbing identity fraud.
To speed up the process, the department has tasked major banking outlets to roll out the smart IDs in their branches.
As a result, it aims to expand access through bank partnerships to 100 new sites by the end of the current financial year (early 2026) and 1 000 bank branches over the medium-term, Schreiber said.
The old ID books are still currently being produced and distributed as there are 100 non-modernised home affairs offices, out of a total of 400.
“This means they don’t have the capability – the Live Capture IT feature – to produce the smart ID card. So, we want to stop that production. The trick is we have to give people a reasonable alternative. That's why the new channels are so important. For example, if you live in a community where you only have a non-modernised office…we need to give you a bank branch in that community where you can get the smart ID before we say you can no longer get the green ID.
“I think by the end of this administration, we’ll safely say the green ID is no longer a valid form of identification. But it does depend, of course, on whether we get all 18 million people to get the alternative.”
DHA branches frequently experience technology interruptions and network downtime issues, with the blame often placed on government IT procurement arm the State IT Agency’s doorstep. The department must also contend with snaking queues at branches and the illegal practice of blocking slots in queues to resell to members of the public, among other issues.
However, it has increasingly placed technology and public-private partnerships at the forefront of solving some of its challenges.
As the custodian of identity, civil status and migration of citizens, the DHA is on course to replace the green bar-coded ID books with smart ID cards that have better security features and are extremely difficult to forge.
The DHA’s bank partnership includes FNB, Absa, Nedbank and Standard Bank. Using eHomeAffairs, citizens are able to apply for their smart IDs and passports online, and finalise the application process at certain bank branches.
According to the DHA, in the 2024/25 financial year, it issued over 3.5 million smart ID cards against a target of 2.5 million. This means at the end of 2024/25, the total number of persons issued with smart ID cards was over 25 million since the inception of the modernisation programme, the department has revealed.
The minister said the department’s plan is to fix the reliability of its IT system through digital channels, and ramp up the existing partnership with the banks.
“This is going to massively mitigate the queues and the frustration that people feel. It’s a basic decentralisation approach where you give people more options through the local bank branch and ultimately through their smartphone or their banking app. This will take people out of the queue and lessens the load on our system.
“We are currently finalising some of these arrangements. We hope to be able to announce the first breakthroughs in our partnerships with the banks, getting to the 2.0 version of our partnership.
“The benefit of that is you don't have to then replicate our home affairs office inside a bank branch but move the home affairs IT system onto the bank’s platform, and that unlocks the opportunities we’re looking for.”
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