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South Africa Rolls Out Biometric Passports

Posted by timothy on from the rfids-please dept.

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."

8 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mixed emotions... by acooks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who gives a crap about HIV? HIV infection can be prevented. The methods for prevention are known. Clinics provide free condoms to anyone. What more would you like them to do?

    The real issues are unemployment, poverty, lack of education, racist politicians repeating the injustices of the past and crime.

    The HIV infection ratio is 18.1%
    The unemployment ratio is 21.7%
    Literacy: 86.4%
    GDP per capita: 10000 USD

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html

  2. Jesus Christ! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Talk about overkill. So: once it is figured out how to forge these "unforgeable" passports (as has ALWAYS happened so far), then the forgers will just be that more secure, won't they? Because they will be unquestioned.

  3. Re:Mixed emotions... by jabithew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    HIV infection can be prevented.

    By taking a shower, according to your soon-to-be-President.

    --
    All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
  4. Corruption by Kifoth · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.

    1. Re:Corruption by wamatt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can walk into a Home Affairs office, slip someone a wad of cash and get an ID book under the name Wile E Coyote. O

      Right. But that's exactly the point. Its a step in the right direction. With biometerics you can't do that anymore once it becomes mandatory and everyone is bio'd. You need unique data. Also there is not much incentive for someone to make any meaningful cash out of selling the biological data (since they can only ever do it once anyway).

      on a side note: I quite honestly don't give a toss if someone has my DNA. My biological code should be opensource :)

  5. UK are the main reason for this by Builder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The main reason for this rollout is that the UK recently rescinded the reciprocal visa arrangements for South Africans visiting the UK.

    Previously, many SA citizens visited and did business in the UK and no visa was required - They could stay for up to 3 months.

    In early Feb this year, the UK govt announced that visas would be required from 3 March onwards due to concerns about the amount of illegitimate SA passports in circulation.

    This gave thousands of people who had already bought plane tickets only a few weeks to make the appointment, travel across the country and apply for a visa. If they were unable to do this due to time constraints of financial constraints, they lost the cost of their flights as the airlines pushed back and said that they had sold non-refundable tickets, so it was not their problem.

    The SA government really had no choice but to implement these as the UK is a major business partner for many SA companies, and stemming this travel would have been very damaging. And elections are coming up.

  6. Re:Mixed emotions... by krou · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
  7. Re:Lots of countries have this by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except that as you said, the chip is passive, and completely unpowered unless it is being scanned, because it gets its power from the scanner. And because of that, they can't transmit with more power than they are getting from the scanning field.

    Which makes them entirely non-dangerous normally, and less dangerous than the field that scans them when they are being scanned.

    I'd stop worrying, especially as the (official) scanners are so short range that you have to take your passport out of your pocket (and away from your genitals) for it to be read, so your genitals would never actually be exposed to the RFID chip's radio broadcast.