South Africa Rolls Out Biometric Passports

volume4 writes "The South African Department of Home Affairs has begun rolling out security enhanced passports to new applicants from this week. A facility in Pretoria which prints the new passports was officially opened last week by the minister of home affairs, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. The new passports have an embedded RFID chip which stores the owner's biometric information, including personal details, a high-resolution colour photograph and fingerprint information."

Comments

Corruption

[Kifoth]

South Africa's Department of Home Affairs, which issues the passports, is hands down the most corrupt and inept in the country.

The UK has just revoked South Africa's short term 'no visa' entry rights because of the sheer number of dodgy passports being issued by the DHA.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&set_id=1&art_id=nw20090224132638974C233056

The problem is not forgery. It's corrupt officials. I fail to see how making the passports 'high tech' is going to stop a bent official from issuing one with phoney details anyway.

This is just (expensive) security theatre.

Re:Mixed emotions...

[krou]

Actually, the "terrorism" threat has more to do with the forgery of passports in SA, which will be used by terrorists abroad. It's been getting a lot easier in recent years to obtain South African passports through illicit means. The UK recently introduced new visa restrictions on South Africans because of this. This move is no doubt an attempt to try and alleviate these concerns, which of course it won't, because of the levels of corruption in the SA Department of Home Affairs.