Digital IDs will launch before year-end, government says

The roll-out of digital IDs, spearheaded by the department of home affairs, will begin before the end of the year, government has promised.

Speaking at a media briefing on progress regarding government’s medium-term development plan in Pretoria on Friday, Maropene Ramokgopa, minister for planning monitoring & evaluation (DPME), said the digitisation efforts at home affairs will help other government departments, including transport, digitise their services, too.

“The MyMzansi digital prototype was launched and is doing very well and we will be seeing that by the end of this year; the roll-out of smart IDs will also be done…  If that integration is done well, we will see other departments, like basic education and the transport department, also plugging in as it relates to the issuance of licences,” said Ramokgopa. The MyMzansi portal, launched in 2025, is the prototype for government’s envisioned one-stop shop for citizen services.

First announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address last February, digital IDs are the cornerstone of government’s plan to digitise citizen services across the board. The initiative forms part of a broader digitisation drive aimed at fostering economic growth through investment in next-generation industries, minimising corruption by abolishing manual systems and improving the accessibility of government services through digital channels.

“We will invest in digital public infrastructure to give South Africans access to government services anytime, anywhere, through a relaunched gov.za platform,” Ramaphosa said at the time. “At the heart of this transformation will be the implementation of a digital identity system. These measures will … create one government that is accessible to every person at a touch.”

Reforms

Throughout 2025, home affairs incrementally implemented digital initiatives aimed at streamlining its operations as it prepares to make its services fully digital over time. Examples include the introduction of self-service kiosks at selected branches, the introduction of an electronic visa system, an expansion in the number of bank branches able to render home affairs services and changes to administrative procedures.

These reforms led to the provision of 3.6 million smart ID cards over 2025, half a million more than the previous annual record. A decade-long visa backlog of 306 000 applications was also cleared and the incorporation of drones and body cameras by the Border Management Authority improved the rate of detection of illegal border crossings by 125%, according to home affairs minister Leon Schreiber.

Read: Home affairs promises full automation in 2026

Digital IDs, alongside the population registry database managed by home affairs, will allow other government entities to authenticate the citizenry for additional services. An example of this is a digital driver’s licence planned by the transport department, aimed at reducing the cost of deploying physical driver’s licence cards and streamlining adjacent administrative processes like the metering out and payment of traffic fines.

Collaboration with the private sector is a key tenant of home affairs’ strategy for the digital ID roll-out.

“The government, especially the department of home affairs, has been working with financial institutions and banks. To a certain extent, there are already banks that have started introducing very good technologies to ensure that this programme rolls out. So, it’s an important programme that we believe in and will keep a close eye on as the department of monitoring & evaluation,” said DPME deputy minister Seiso Mohai. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media

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