The Department of Home Affairs plans to cease production of green ID books this year, aiming for a fully digital ID system by 2029. This transition, driven by security concerns and fraud prevention, involves expanding smart ID card services through partnerships with retail banks and integrating services into banking apps.
The Department of Home Affairs aims to stop producing new green ID books this year, the Minister of Home Affairs , Leon Schreiber, has said. While it will still be many years before the less secure green ID book is invalidated as a form of identification in South Africa, Home Affairs is hoping to accelerate the transition.
Schreiber has said that his department wants a fully operational digital ID system in place by the 2029 general elections. This is part of a drive to digitise the Department of Home Affairs’ systems and, ultimately, to invalidate the green ID book, as it has become a significant vector for fraud. Due to these security concerns, Schreiber and the home affairs director-general, Livhuwani Tommy Makhode, have encouraged everyone who is able to switch to a smart ID card. However, many Home Affairs branches across the country still lack the necessary equipment to allow people to apply for smart ID cards. To address this lack of access, Home Affairs has entered into partnership agreements with most of South Africa’s retail banks to offer ID and passport services at their branches. This is part of the “Home Affairs @ Home” strategy, which involves expanding access to smart ID and passport services to hundreds more bank branches across South Africa. Last year, the banks confirmed that they will roll out services to at least 153 branches before 31 March 2026. This is a significant increase from the current footprint of 32 branches provided by only some major banks. The plan is for Home Affairs to be available in at least 1,000 bank branches by March 2029. All of South Africa’s major banks have also supported Schreiber’s initiative to integrate Home Affairs services into their apps. Schreiber has explained that Home Affairs wants to be able to deliver smart IDs directly to people’s homes or offices, as banks do with credit and debit cards.”This will free up much-needed capacity within the department to become a more mobile organisation that systematically documents all undocumented South Africans.”Solly Malatsi, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, giving a live demo of the MyMzansi app While seeking to improve access to the smart ID card, Home Affairs is also collaborating on a fully digital identity system for South Africa. The digitisation of South Africa’s civic systems is a joint project under the Government of National Unity, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s second-term administration. Communications minister Solly Malatsi announced the launch of South Africa’s Digital Transformation Roadmap in May 2025, which envisioned a digital public services platform called MyMzansi. The publication of the roadmap was accompanied by the establishment of the Digital Service Unit , a team located within the Presidency. This team quietly went to work on developing MyMzansi, and Malatsi unveiled a working prototype of the platform in a live demo at the Global Digital Public Infrastructure Summit in November. MyMzansi’s first working service was a smartphone application and digital driving licence card, including an online licence renewal system. Malatsi said the MyMzansi prototype app showed how a driver’s licence renewal can be completed in minutes, with credentials verified and details updated — all connected to existing national systems. When Malatsi first unveiled the MyMzansi platform in 2025, he said it would form the core of the government’s digital transformation plan. “The essence of that is the establishment of a single digital identity for all South Africans through the MyMzansi app, which will give you a digital identity and a centralised system to access government services,” he said. Malatsi added that the platform will be zero-rated, enabling citizens to access it even when they have run out of mobile data.Transport minister Barbara Creecy recently revealed that the government’s longer-term ambition was to”Long term, the aim is to go digital and, in the long term, to move to one identity card. However, in the short term, one’s got to think about the fact that many citizens are not yet digital-savvy,” stated Creecy.Creecy said another consideration was whether all law enforcement officers had the necessary equipment to scan digital driving licences. “You can’t move straight into digital documents because there could be unintended consequences in terms of both identification and law enforcement,” she said. To facilitate this and curb fraud, Creecy said the Department of Transport and Home Affairs have integrated their IT systems, which turned out to be more challenging than they initially anticipated. “Driver’s licences are an important form of identification. We think it’s very important that there must be synergy between the driver’s licence database and the Home Affairs population register,” Creecy stated.Leon Schreiber, South African Minister of Home Affairs In addition to a digital reform of South Africa’s civic systems, Home Affairs has published a draft revised white paper on citizenship, immigration, and refugee protection. This week, Schreiber announced that the deadline for public comments on the white paper has been extended from 31 January to 15 February 2026. “This amounts to the most significant reform and most significant clampdown on abuse in the sector that our country has seen in a generation,” said Schreiber. “Make sure your voice is heard as we build a new citizenship, immigration, and refugee protection system that serves South Africa’s interests.”
Digital ID Green ID Book Home Affairs Smart ID Card Digitization
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