To foil foreigners, govt
wants to ‘reregister’ every SA child when they turn five
Business Insider SA
Jan 03, 2021
- Foreigners buy the birth
certificates of dead SA children to gain South African citizenship, the
department of home affairs says.
- To prevent that, it is
considering "reregistration" of children at age five, and
capturing fingerprints and photos of the iris then.
- It may also want photos of
the ears of babies.
- Allowing South Africans to
apply for a full ID at age 10 will reduce the risk of matriculants trying
to write exams without a smart ID, the DHA says.
When they
turn five years old, South African children should be "reregistered"
with the government, with a comprehensive set of biometric data captured, the
department of home affairs (DHA) has recommended.
That, it
says, is the way to stop foreigners stealing the identities of dead children.
The
department on Thursday gazetted its
draft Identity Management Policy, laying out its thinking on
how to update South Africa's system of identification, under legislation now 20
years old.
It has
proposed a system of random ID numbers, or at least replacing one digit with an
"X" to make provision for people who do not fall into the male/female
binary.
South
Africa's system of registering people is fundamentally flawed, the department
says, and that will require changes to how children are registered.
"Any
child can lay claim to the identity of another child and such instances have
been recorded. For instance, there is a practice, especially in borderline
communities, where birth certificates of deceased children are sold to foreign
nationals. This happens when the death of a child is not reported to the
DHA."
The plan
is to capture biometric data at birth, to prevent such instances, and the DHA
has called for "stronger cooperation" between it and the department
of health in that regard.
"However,
not all biometric traits captured from children shortly after birth can be used
to verify their identities later in life."
It is
considering photographing the ears of children to help, but also wants to
capture biometrics again during childhood.
"Children
must be reregistered when they reach age five with ten fingerprints and iris
and facial photographs," the DHA says.
It then
recommends that the legal age for applications for an ID be dropped from 16 to
the age of 10.
This, and
the capture of biometric data at that point, will "curb identity
theft", the department says. It will also "mitigate a risk of having
matriculants who write matric examinations without smart ID cards.".
www.samigration.com
