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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."

3 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

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    The main reason for this rollout is that the UK recently rescinded the reciprocal visa arrangements for South Africans visiting the UK.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