Evolving partnerships drive South Africa’s digital identity program

Source: Biometric Update, 15/05/2017

South Africa took a major step toward the use of digital identity to
secure the delivery of a variety of government services in 2013, with
the introduction of a national smart ID card embedded with fingerprint
data.


Today the system is progressing toward being used for driver’s
licenses, voter registration, and all other social services, Director
General of the Department of Home Affairs for South Africa, Mkuseli
Apleni, told an audience at ID4Africa 2017 last month. However, it
faces an enrollment backlog of millions of people, along with roughly
a million new applicants each year.


Director General Apleni spoke about the challenges and opportunities
facing South Africa’s identity system in an exclusive interview with
Biometric Update at ID4Africa 2017. Having moved beyond a prior
unsuccessful attempt with a completely privatized process, Apleni says
the role of the Department of Home Affairs is to manage suppliers. “My
mandate in Home Affairs is to manage civic affairs and immigration.
But for me to do that, I need systems.” The way to make sure those
systems perform the function they are needed for, while avoiding
vendor lock-in, is to acquire solutions rather than equipment, he
says.


Now that that process is well under way, and as early benchmarks are
achieved, Apleni sees a role for other biometrics like iris and voice
recognition, and an evolution within the system toward multi-factor
biometrics. “These things will help us to tighten up.” He also sees a
need for governments to strike a balance between keeping costs low and
providing incentive for vendors to continue the research and
development that ultimately provides new and improved processes.


South Africa’s Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS)
program also includes a public-private partnership with four banks to
extend South African citizens’ digital identities to secure personal
financial services such as social grants. This model is helping the
country extend the uses of digital identity as broadly as possible,
leveraging the database administered centrally by the Department of
Home Affairs.


South Africa is currently upgrading its AFIS system to provide law
enforcement with fuller prints, and Apleni sees that data improvement
as part of a widely beneficial capacity-building process driven by
security concerns.


“The Home Affairs Department is at the center of the security
architecture of any country, because we keep the database of
identities for the country,” Apleni says. “We are moving in the right
direction with biometrics, and as we improve these systems to include
iris, voice recognition, and as we reach the next level, where at a
point of entry you can just say ‘open the gate,’ we can save money for
the state and improve the economy by reducing corruption and fraud in
the country.”


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South Africa is considering ways to improve its birth registration
system and increase enrolment in HANIS. Like most African countries,
it is also still completing its transition away from legacy paper
systems, and Apleni says resistance to that change is natural, but
must be overcome.


“Technology is the solution,” he says. “A paper-based process will
give you problems forever. You cannot have an efficient system, which
is not prone to fraud and corruption, so you cannot properly give
access to your citizens.”


“When you are at the point of buying the systems, you always think
it’s too expensive, but it’s very cheap as compared to manual
processes,” Apleni explains. “Yes it will be expensive when you
implement it, but the benefits to your country are far beyond.”


For Apleni, ID4Africa 2017 reinforced the need for dialogue within the
digital identity movement. “Sharing is a key. You may be in your
country struggling with a certain issue, and spend all your energy on
this one thing, and you can just take it from another country
here.”


With continued partnership and support from diverse groups of
stakeholders, South Africa may be able to achieve UN Sustainable
Development Goal 16:9 to provide legal identity and birth registration
for all by 2030 ahead of schedule, and share the stories of its
continued success to help other African countries do the same.