President Cyril Ramaphosa has recently reiterated his commitment to developing a digital identity system, integrating the Department of Home Affairs, SARS, and the South African Reserve Bank, enabling perfect limitless central surveillance of any and all interactions any individual has with any public or private entity in real time.

The DHA aims to phase out Green ID books by the end of this year, and integrate them into the digital and street branches of the five-member banking cartel that dominates our financial sector. The system will provide every citizen with a unique digital identifier (UDI) for accessing government services.

And in exchange, Microsoft, who will likely benefit from IT service contracts, and certainly benefit from expanded investment opportunities for data centres, has pledged an additional R5 billion investment in South Africa, adding to its previous R20 billion, as it hopes to expand data centre services, which are essential to the large-scale data processing that will accompany digital ID services.

This seems to me to be largely a moneymaking scheme for Microsoft and adjacent tech services, as there is little tangible benefit for citizens. The data surveillance aspect certainly empowers the state, but digitising public services in a country where it is hard enough to get anything done when speaking to a flesh-and-blood human being seems quixotic. Now we are all going to be wrangling with call centres and digital service queues as the lights go out at Eskom.

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) acknowledges persistent issues in issuing Smart IDs to permanent residents and naturalised citizens due to IT constraints.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, a big fan of Fabian Socialist ideas like free money, the decriminalisation of land grabs and omnipotent technocratic surveillance states, had to admit that his hero Tony Blair’s favourite policy instrument might not actually be all that easy to implement here in sunny South Africa.

In a recent statement, he highlighted failures of the current IT service provider as a major obstacle but assured efforts are underway to resolve these issues urgently. No doubt Microsoft is on the call list for replacements.

The digitalisation process unfortunately is still reliant on manually verifying people’s identities, which is a major bottleneck. Many residents and citizens alike report being turned away from DHA branches, even after receiving invitations to apply for Smart IDs.

Schreiber seems to see it as vital to get immigrants onto this system as a priority. He has plugged hard for removing visa requirements from China and India as well.

It’s not a complete flop though - from October to December 2024, the DHA issued over 970,000 Smart IDs, surpassing its target. But early adopters are easy to reach, compliance may become a bit trickier as time goes on.

One issue is Schreiber’s broader strategy, ‘Home Affairs @ home,’ focuses on making the department more digital, aiming for “streamlined and accessible” services. But this appears to be motivated by his desire to shut as many physical branches as possible, and get people onto digital queueing and application systems.

It’s a nice idea, and it may even work, but I have my doubts.

Recent issues in this area have already affected driving licenses, as South Africa’s Auditor General (AG) found recently. Irregularities in the tender process for Idemia Smart Identity's contract to supply biometric driver's license printing machines showed that bids exceeded the R486 million budget, and increased to over R898 million. Naturally, OUTA had to bring it to their attantion.

But while overpaying and looting is par for the course here, these schemes open up much grander vulnerabilities. Data protection remains a concern in a country with the highest fraud rate on the continent, and a host of criminals in the department who benefit from embarrassing the minister and making a quick buck.

The press briefing emphasized AI infrastructure and data centres as vital for South Africa’s technological advancement, which of course, Microsoft will be investing in. Microsoft praised SARS for its AI adoption, suggesting similar integration across government departments.

Ramaphosa claims AI will somehow fix unemployment, with applications planned in healthcare, social grants, and public services. How he aims to do this considering the impressive lack of skills development or even basic literacy in South Africa is a real mystery, but Microsoft apparently is funding technical certification exams for 50,000 people.

He wants to make AI the central focus of South Africa’s G20 Presidency, aiming to position the country as a leader in AI technology on the continent. Fortunately that is a very low bar to get over, so he will likely have something to clap about at the end of his term.

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