The department of home affairs has announced a “comprehensive upgrade” to its digital identity verification system.
The system, called Abis (Automated Biometric Identification System), is used by various institutions in the public and private sectors where checking an identity against the national population register is important.
“The roll-out of a reliable, efficient and secure verification service supports both the public and private sectors to improve service delivery. 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 home affairs minister Leon Schreiber in a statement on Monday.
The Abis project kicked off in 2016 with a view to boosting economic activity by speeding up the ID verification process for banks, insurance companies and other financial services providers. However, the system has been plagued by inefficiencies in recent years, with users reporting a failure rate of up to 50% on their queries to the national population register. According to Schreiber, issues such as the system being “down, slow or littered with errors” have had a negative impact on the ability of its users to conduct business efficiently.
Home affairs said tests done following the upgrades, which were implemented over the last few months, show that the system’s error rates have been reduced to below 1%.
With testing done, the department will now roll out the upgraded system to all its registered users. This announcement also comes with a notice of system fee increases, which come into effect on 1 April. The increases will only apply to private sector players since government departments and agencies are exempt from paying fees, said home affairs.
Digital overhaul
The upgrades come as home affairs gears up for a digital overhaul, which, according to President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address in February, will form part of a government-wide digital-led reinvention of citizen services. Ramaphosa said the home affairs department and its planned digital ID system are “at the heart” of this transformation.
The list of interventions mentioned by Ramaphosa include a revamp of the gov.za platform, a national electronic health records system and a digital forensics lab aimed at fighting the rising scourge of cybercrime.
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“These measures will transform the relationship between citizens and government and create one government that is accessible to every person at a touch,” said the president.
Few of Ramaphosa’s ideas received mention in finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech earlier this month. Instead, a bitter battle over a proposed VAT hike to fund a budget deficit between the ANC and its partners in the government of national unity took centre stage. The question of how Ramaphosa’s proposed digital reforms will be funded largely remains open ended.
According to the budget review, home affairs has been allocated R13.4-billion for the 2025/2026 financial year. Home affairs also has a provisional allocation of a further R1.5-billion set aside for “digitisation and human resource capitalisation”, which will be dispersed halfway through the year if and when the department “demonstrates readiness or meets specific conditions”, according to national treasury.
According to Schreiber, the launch of the upgraded verification system is “further proof” of the progress that home affairs is making on its digitalisation journey.
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“This investment in our population register is not only overdue but also important for delivering on the vision for the digital ID, as outlined by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the state of the nation address, as a secure and efficient population register forms the cornerstone of the digital ID,” said Schreiber. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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