Home Affairs launches new automation system �` here are the changes you need to know about

Source: IT News, 11/07/2018

The Department of Home Affairs has announced that it plans to roll-out
a new Births, Marriages and Deaths (BMD) system as part of its ongoing
modernisation effort.
In a press conference held on Wednesday morning (11 July) in Pretoria,
Home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba said that the major system upgrade
will begin on Friday afternoon (13 July).
He added that the upgrade will be rolled out in two phases, with the
first stage set to include the automation of birth for children under
the age of one, the reprinting of marriage and death certificates, and
the printing of parent details on child passports.
“Birth registration for children 0 to one year will be automated,
meaning that clients will no longer complete paper forms for birth
registration,” he said.
“This will be more convenient for our clients and will reduce
opportunities for corruption and fraud.
“Once we have completed the upgrade and fully implemented in the
identified offices, the details of children will be printed in the
children’s passports. In this way, the department will have delivered
also on the earlier Cabinet concession of easing travel with
children,” he said.
The second phase will include registration for children one and older,
and new registrations for marriage and deaths, he said.
In May, Home Affairs officially announced plans to launch a new
Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
The department said that the ABIS will act as a fundamental baseline
for the broader National Identification System (HANIS) and will
consolidate South African and foreign nationals’ data into a single base.
“The grand plan seeks to integrate HANIS and the Automated Fingerprint
Identification System (AFIS) into an automated system through ABIS
with the capability to identify and verify people through
fingerprints, facial recognition and IRIS technology,” it said.
Service interruption
Gigaba said that there may be ‘minimal’ disruptions in Home Affairs
offices as it rolled out the new system over the coming week.
He also confirmed that its live capture system is currently
experiencing downtime due to interruptions to its power supply, caused
by a UPS that failed some time on Tuesday.
Services affected include those relating to application and collection
of smart ID cards and passports.
The department said that technicians are currently on site and in the
time being has switched over to its disaster recovery site, which
would allow services to resume.
It further apologised to citizens and clients for the inconvenience,
particularly those requiring their enabling documents urgently.
“Disaster recovery efforts are underway and we expect systems to be
fully online by end of business today,” it said