South Africa’s “green mamba” passport is due for an upgrade. Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber wants biometric e-Passports issued within two years. The chip makes the document harder to forge and readable at electronic airport gates abroad. That could mean shorter queues for South African travellers. It could also strengthen the case for more visa-free destinations. But there is a catch. Before Cabinet sees the proposal, Home Affairs has to clear a stubborn problem from its own system.
By Luis Monzon
The Department of Home Affairs plans to introduce e-Passports in South Africa within the next two years, Minister Leon Schreiber has announced.
The new passports will contain biometric chips that make them harder to counterfeit, which Home Affairs hopes will strengthen its case for more visa exemptions for South African travellers.
Over 180 countries issue passports with contactless near-field communication (NFC) chips that contain digitally transmissible biometric information.
This included countries such as India, Jordan, Mongolia, Bahrain, Jamaica, Pakistan, and the Seychelles, which introduced them around 2021.
Countries in regions such as the European Union (EU) are legally mandated to issue biometric e-passports with standardised security features across all member states.
Non-EU countries in the Schengen Area, such as Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland, also complied with EU passport standards through association agreements.
These standards ensured that e-passport chips contained biometric data, including high-resolution facial images, fingerprints, and physical and biographic data such as sex and nationality.
These passports also contained a cryptographic signature from the issuing country to confirm that the data had not been altered or tampered with.
Across Africa, Morocco was the first country to introduce e-passports, followed by countries such as Mauritania and Algeria.
Countries with economies comparable to South Africa’s, such as Nigeria and Kenya, already offer e-passports with digital chips, while Egypt is still planning to introduce them.
The primary benefit of e-passports over traditional passports is that they are more difficult to forge, as the data stored in the chip is tamper-proof.
When an e-passport is scanned, the scanner will detect whether the data on the page matches the biometric data on the chip.
For travellers, the primary benefit is faster processing. Many countries now offer specialised passport control gates where holders of special passports and visas can move through more quickly.
Scanners at the gates will perform facial verification and scan the chip in e-passports in seconds, allowing holders to skip long queues.
Incoming e-passports will make travel easier for South Africans
Schreiber revealed the plan to introduce e-passports in South Africa as part of a collaboration between Home Affairs and its Government Printing Works division.
The department has implemented significant technological upgrades to biometrically verify passport photos as part of Home Affairs’ preparations to roll out passport applications at bank branches, he said.
“Once we have fully automated the process to eliminate any scope of human manipulation or fraud, we will take the proposal to Cabinet for a new e-passport,” Schreiber said.
He said that the biometric verification for passport photos would deal “a direct blow against the fraud known as photo swapping.”
“This will introduce a secure chip containing a traveller’s biometrics, and for the first time render that new South African passport readable by electronic gates at airports around the world.”
The plan is to implement hardware upgrades and digital systems to eliminate passport application fraud first, and then look to increase the power of South Africa’s passport.
“We will embark on negotiations to obtain visa-free access for more countries around the world for South Africans who use the new secure passport,” said Schreiber.
At the same time, Home Affairs and the Border Management Authority are pursuing the introduction of automated gates and gantries at all South Africa’s ports of entry.
Construction of these new gantries will begin once the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system is fully rolled out.
“This will eliminate reliance on manual stamping of passports in favour of electronic gates that will only open once the biometrics of the arriving foreign traveller are matched with the biometrics contained on the ETA,” said the minister.
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“The significance of this next phase for border security can be summarised with a single sentence: ‘You cannot bribe a computer.’”
Schreiber said that he wanted at least one of these automated gantries operational at a major border post in South Africa by the end of the 7th administration, which is in 2028.
This article was first published by MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
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