Home Affairs goes paperless

By Damaria Senne, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 07 Nov 2006

The Department of Home Affairs is on a drive to create a paperless environment. It expects to have the capacity to eliminate physical forms from its interaction with citizens by the end of March 2009.

According to its Web site, the department will begin the national roll-out of "Who Am I Online", an integrated system where all transactions are done online and in real-time.

The system, currently in the testing phase, will allow for the digital capture of citizens' photos, fingerprints, signatures, voices and demographic information, as well as storing supporting documentation, the department says.

It will also ensure acceptable fingerprint quality at offices of application for documentation, improve the turnaround time for applications and eradicate future record conversion, it says.

"The system will ensure that citizens applying for IDs will no longer have to fill in forms," says Home Affairs spokesperson Nkosana Sibuyi.

The system will be implemented in regional offices and district offices of the Department of Home Affairs, as well as harbours, international airports, multi-purpose community centres, selected hospitals, morgues, post offices, chain stores and malls, the department says. This will allow those without access to the Internet to make use of the system.

Sibuyi could not say how much the "Who Am I Online" system will cost. The department's Web site shows the tender for the system closed on the 31 May, the live capture concept office was established at the end of August and testing began in Kimberley on 1 November.

Testing will also take place in Cape Town, Giyani and Gaborone from 1 February 2007, with national roll-out commencing on 1 May.

Smart IDs

Sibuyi notes the process of digitising citizens' fingerprints, which was part of the conversion from green ID books to Smart IDs, was completed at the end of October. Close to 30 million hard copies of fingerprints were digitised, he says.

Sibuyi notes the next step is to take the Smart ID project for Cabinet approval. However, he could not provide a timeframe as to when this will occur, or when Smart IDs will be rolled out.

He says Smart IDs will play an important role in eliminating fraud and the use of fake IDs. "Smart IDs are going to be very difficult to fake," he notes.