IT has been emphasised as an important element for security at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).
The department presented on progress in security matters to the Parliamentary portfolio committee last month.
Committee members said security of the IT systems is a priority and there is a need to improve on IT systems in order to get clean reports.
Castro Khwela, DDG for counter-corruption and security services at the DHA, said a security risk assessment was done of DHA offices and many were found to be below the required minimum standards, as per the requirements of Minimum Information Security Standard.
He added that an intervention strategy is being formulated and will include the training of office managers on security issues and resuscitation of installed electronic systems.
Resuscitation of systems is necessary, because an assessment made in 2009 showed that systems were not meeting the requirements in terms of quantities for DHA. For example, some electronic systems had stopped functioning and, therefore, were in need of resuscitation to restore them back to their initial installation standards, according to the DDG.
Private dependence
The DHA highlighted progress in the form of installation of electronic security systems across 57 of its offices.
It added that challenges include the poor standards of security, lack of appropriate skills among the staff, a high staff turnover, insufficient resources and an over-dependence on private security officers.
Khwela said the high staff turnover is due to personnel being taken by other departments, because of the high standards of training in the DHA.
Computers are now being distributed and almost all operatives have cellphones, according to the department. Installation of systems would be complete during this financial year and should be restored and resuscitated by the end of the financial year.
The total number of private guards is 605 and costs R6.91 million annually. The number of in-house security officers appointed by the DHA is 85.
"The over-dependency on private security guards is a large problem as their loyalties are sometimes doubtful. In the case of break-ins, collusion between private security guards and criminals is an issue," said the department.
It is attempting to develop its specialised technical security practitioners in order to alleviate the dependency on private security companies by installing electronic security systems.
ID theft
It also presented on fraud detection. Challenges here include too few analysts (generally only one or two for each area) and, therefore, a large backlog, a lack of IT specialisation, and heavy reliance on manual records.
The DHA also said its online verification system or Home Affairs National Identification System (Hanis) is in the early stages of implementation and has the largest fingerprint database in the world, with over 38 million unique fingerprint sets and this allows the department to identify identity fraud.
Photos are being converted to match with the fingerprints; over 13 million photos are stored for identification and verification.
With the online verification system, manual records were converted into online copies. In 2011, the commercial online verification system was launched and offered to external organisations.
It has allowed DHA to identify fraud associated with ID books. Banks and other companies could check home affairs' records and see the correct owner of that ID book.
Audit trail
The system has been rolled out to all civic service offices, 117 mobile offices and it is being used for temporary ID certification, emergency passports, re-issues and passport applications.
Committee members expressed concern at the security behind Hanis since the department said it is fallible. People could collude with the internal ID people to change things on Hanis.
However, the department explained that an audit trail is in place, which allows the tracing of fraud.
It said an audit trail programme is very strong and used three levels of verification. This includes a PIN, fingerprint of the home affairs operator and a smart card to minimise corruption and deter corrupt officials.
Khwela said another challenge affecting the department's security is insufficient resources, particularly vehicles and photographic equipment. However, he said this is being addressed.
Plans for moving forward include augmenting a technical team, and possible registration of a front company to deal with security requirements particularly on technical matters.
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