Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber says the outdated green bar-coded ID book will be discontinued by the end of 2029, and it will stop issuing the ID book by the end of 2025 as part of a major digital transformation campaign in South Africa.
Speaking on the DA’s podcast, Schreiber outlined his department’s bold strategy to modernise services, expand access to smart ID cards, and bring Home Affairs into the digital era.
According to Schreiber, 25 million smart ID cards have already been issued, while 18 million green ID books remain in circulation. However, the green book poses serious security risks.
“It’s actually the most defrauded ID document in Africa,” Schreiber said. “It has a large financial cost.”
Despite this, Home Affairs continues to issue green IDs at 25% of its 430 offices, which remain non-modernised and paper-based.
“You can’t just, at the stroke of a pen, cancel the green book without giving people access to the alternative,” he said.
Schreiber’s department is now focusing on giving all South Africans access by scaling up digital infrastructure, partnering with banks, and introducing online and mobile solutions. Currently, only 30 bank branches in the country offer smart ID services, and these are mostly located in urban areas, he said.
“We’re still contributing to the problem,” he said. “People try to make online bookings, and they’re full one minute past midnight because there are only 30 branches in a country of 62 million people.”
A key challenge, Schreiber said, is staffing. “Home Affairs only meets 40% of its human resource requirements, meaning it will never have the necessary number of people to make the bank branch system work.
“You’re simply never going to have enough people to get to every bank branch in South Africa.”
The solution lies in integrating Home Affairs technology directly into bank IT platforms, eliminating the need for a full Home Affairs team to be physically present in each branch, he said.
“Once we get it right, there’s no reason that every bank branch can’t offer it. It becomes an online integrated system. All you need is a camera and a fingerprint scanner,” said the minister.
“Home Affairs will still control the pipeline. You will still need your face and your fingerprint. We will control the safety. It is far safer to do so digitally than to have a person there.”
Schreiber said the department is engaging with long-standing banking partners to roll out the new system nationwide. Once fully implemented, the same infrastructure could allow people to access Home Affairs services through their banking apps.
“When we say ‘Home Affairs at Home,’ that’s what we mean,” he said. “We want to bring Home Affairs to you, instead of you standing in a queue.”
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