THE Department of Home Affairs will digitise 286 million records at its disposal through the digitisation project it launched on Wednesday, in partnership with Statistics South Africa.
Birth certificates will be prioritised, followed by other documents.
The digitisation project, converting information into a digital format process, follows close collaboration between the Department of Home Affairs and Statistics South Africa. It signifies a transition from the old systems of record keeping to a modern, efficient and secure storage method.
“South Africans have already seen a glimpse of this modern, digital future and experienced its benefits when applying for Smart ID cards and passports in modernised offices through eHomeAffairs. We were used to waiting months for these documents only a few years ago, and now get them in a few days,” said Home Affairs minister, Malusi Gigaba.
The Department of Home Affairs has 286 million records, 90 per cent are in paper format. Most of these are records of births, marriages, deaths, ID applications, naturalisation and permitting and date back to the late 1800s. These include 110 million birth records, which carry records of generations that can be used to construct family trees.
