Cape Town — The Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, wants all green identity document (ID) bookholders to make the switch to smart IDs to prevent identity theft.
This comes as the Department attempts to fix issues where IDs have been wrongfully blocked, as well as to reduce the circulation of fraudulent IDs by cancelling all duplicate IDS, which are usually held by illegal immigrants, IOL reported.
Home Affairs Minister, Leon Schreiber, said some IDs date back as far as 2005 and boiled down to duplications in the biometric system, suspicions of illegal immigrants holding identities, and even deceased individuals.
“By providing the public with the opportunity to make representations, the department intends to end the inconvenience caused by the block to holders of legitimate IDs, while cancelling IDs held by unauthorised persons,“ he said.
[Media Statement] Home Affairs clamps down on #ID fraud while upholding rule of law #TeamHomeAffairs #DHAServiceDelivery pic.twitter.com/GuCej3WC58
— HomeAffairsSA 🇿🇦 (@HomeAffairsSA) August 16, 2024
He added that public participation was important and encouraged members to make use of this opportunity to ensure all IDs that were wrongfully blocked, are now unblocked.
According to EWN, the department gazetted an opportunity for all South Africans to indicate that their IDs were wrongfully blocked and, once verified and found to be wrongfully blocked, the ID then be released.
He added that some IDs were blocked because of fraud and the department could not ignore it as it posed a big security risk to the country.
“Please come forward if you are one of the people with a blocked ID so that we can differentiate between people whose IDs should be unblocked and those who are genuine security risks and that’s why we’re saying those will be cancelled going forward,” Schreiber concluded.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
