That is according to recent feedback from Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber to Sunday newspaper Rapport.
Schreiber told the publication that the department had fixed an IT system issue that prevented most of these individuals from getting the card since it launched in 2012.
To date, only a handful of naturalised citizens who sought special permission from the Home Affairs director-general have been able to obtain the card.
The vast majority of the country’s 800,000 naturalised citizens and 700,000 permanent residents have not been allowed to apply for the more modern identity document.
Schreiber described the fix as the department’s biggest milestone since it started revamping its IT systems a few months ago.
In addition to no longer treating these individuals as second-class citizens, the minister said the system fix would enhance national security.
The minister also said that the achievement would bring the department closer to scrapping the green ID book, which was initially planned to happen several years ago.
The document has become a major target for modification and forgery due to its outdated security.
The DHA has eagerly encouraged people to get a smart ID card to better protect themselves against fraudsters and has given vague warnings about invalidating the ID book.
All the while, permanent residents and naturalised citizens have had no choice but to stick to their ID books.
In recent years, many have complained to MyBroadband about their inability to obtain a smart ID card despite being permanent residents or naturalised citizens for decades.
These included a high-profile and successful businessman who has been working in the South African music industry for more than 50 years.
If these individuals’ ID books were stolen or lost, they were forced to reapply for a green ID book at a dwindling number of Home Affairs branches that still offered the old document.
Plan to offer smart ID cards via banking apps
From Monday, naturalised citizens and permanent residents will also be able to use the eHomeAffairs facility to get their smart ID cards.
This system allows people to apply and pay for their cards online. Thereafter, they must provide biometric verification and collect their card at special Home Affairs kiosks in one of 30 bank branches.
The department aims to expand this service to 100 new branches by March 2026 and 1,000 by March 2028.
However, it also wants to eliminate the requirement for in-person biometric verification and allow applicants to verify their identities via their banking apps in the future.
According to Schreiber, integrating Home Affairs services into the branches was a “logical precursor” to delivering the same services online and via mobile apps.
This forms part of the department’s broader digitalisation strategy, which seeks to make it possible for people to access more of its services from the comfort of their homes.
To support these improvements, the DHA recently announced the rollout of a comprehensive upgrade of its digital verification system used by public and private entities.
This system, which verifies people’s identities through fingerprints and facial recognition against the National Population Register, has been plagued by inefficiencies.
The department said that before the upgrade, users reported failure rates on the system of up to 50% and that it routinely took up to 24 hours for the system to respond.
“When responses did arrive, they were often so littered with errors that they required a cumbersome process of manual verification,” the department said.
“Thanks to the diligent and focused work on this problem by the Department over the past few months, these errors are now set to become a thing of the past.”
“Testing has confirmed that the upgraded system is not only capable of dramatically faster performance, but that it now delivers an error rate of well below 1%.”