Home Affairs, New bill will allow IDs from age 10

JOHANNESBURG - In South Africa, you may only apply for an identity document when you`re 16 and above but, that`s about to change.

Cabinet has approved a new bill that will allow citizens to get their IDs at the age of 10.

The National Identification and Registration Bill of 2022 is now open for public comment.

The Bill also seeks to lay out an integrated digital national identification system, to keep a record of both SA citizens and foreign nationals.

Home affairs, minister Aaron Motsoaledi said, ``what the bill seeks to do is bring a new system called NIS, doesn`t change your nationality, but records, change the age on which people acquire ID documents, we want to move it to 10-years.`

`The rationale is that police at crime scene, use finger prints, so criminals use children...when a young child dies, they don`t take death certificate, so they don`t go and sell it and they live as an South African child that has died, so bill seeks to criminalise [that].`