PRETORIA – Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber says the department will cancel more than 2,000 fraudulently obtained study visas following a major Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation that analysed more than a billion data points as government intensifies efforts to clamp down on immigration fraud and strengthen border security.
Speaking during an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) media briefing on Sunday, Schreiber said the visa cancellations formed part of a broader reform agenda aimed at improving immigration enforcement, securing identity systems and preventing abuses of South Africa’s immigration framework.
“The work from the SIU has actually made massive progress in this regard,” Schreiber said.
“We’re talking about thousands upon thousands of visas. I think we were looking at over a billion data points that were analysed by the SIU in terms of its work.”
He said study visas were among the categories most affected by irregularities identified through the investigation.
“I think we were starting with 2,000 study visas, which were really one of the key categories affected,” he said.
Schreiber said the department viewed the process as an ongoing clean-up operation rather than a once-off audit.
“I don’t think there should be a sort of once-off audit process, but really we have to have a rolling effort to clean up our data, essentially.”
The minister said Home Affairs continued to face significant capacity constraints, with only 832 immigration inspectors deployed across the country.
Despite the limited resources, he said immigration enforcement operations had intensified through collaboration with the Border Management Authority, the South African Police Service and the Department of Employment and Labour.
“The fact that we have over 40,000 from January, given that there are only 832 inspectors, demonstrates to you the extent of the work that is happening by this relatively small group of individuals,” Schreiber said.
He added that technology was increasingly being used to compensate for capacity limitations and strengthen immigration enforcement.
One of the department’s key interventions is the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system, which digitally verifies travellers before they enter South Africa.
Currently operational for short-stay visitors from China, India, Mexico and Indonesia, the system uses facial recognition and machine-learning technology to authenticate passports and verify travellers’ identities.
According to Schreiber, the platform has already prevented thousands of fraudulent applications.
“It has already prevented 5,158 people from obtaining a tourist visa to South Africa because they had a fraudulent passport or the facial verification did not match,” he said.
“We are using facial recognition and machine learning to check whether your travel document is authentic, to match your face to the photo on your passport and when you arrive in South Africa you will be looking into a camera again so that we know the person who has arrived is in fact the correct person who has been given permission to arrive.”
Schreiber said government plans to expand the ETA system globally while introducing facial recognition cameras at ports of entry to further strengthen border management.
The minister also provided an update on Home Affairs’ efforts to phase out the green barcoded ID book, which he described as one of the most vulnerable identity documents to fraud.
“The Green ID is the most defrauded piece of identity documentation in South Africa,” Schreiber said.
He said the document remained susceptible to manipulation because photographs could be removed and replaced, while advances in artificial intelligence had created new opportunities for document fraud.
“There are about 16 million of them still in use, and our job is to replace those with a more secure Smart ID in the first instance,” he said.
Schreiber said Home Affairs had made significant progress through its partnership with the banking sector, which has expanded access to Smart ID services across the country.
“Within three months we are now live at 178 bank branches across the country, many of them in rural areas where people previously did not have access to these services, and an incredible 216,515 people have already used this new service, just since the 9th of March, to make that switch and obtain a Smart ID.”
The department plans to expand the service to 750 bank branches by the end of the year.
Schreiber said Home Affairs was also working to ensure that naturalised citizens, permanent residents and South Africans living abroad would be able to obtain Smart IDs before the green ID book is ultimately phased out.
“That will then be followed by a reasonable notice period for South Africans that we will stop recognising the Green ID book altogether as a valid form of identification and we’ll give people time to make that switch,” he said.
He also outlined progress on government’s planned Digital ID system, which will allow South Africans to verify their identities securely using smartphones.
“The period for public comment on the draft regulations closed on the 6th of June. Technical and regulatory work is underway to enable the first phase rollout of the digital ID within the next few months,” Schreiber said.
He stressed that the Digital ID would be voluntary and would operate alongside the physical Smart ID card.
“Once we’ve stopped recognising the green ID book, the two valid forms of identification in South Africa will either be the existing physical Smart ID card or the digital ID system.”
Schreiber said the reforms announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa were already being implemented and represented a significant shift towards technology-driven immigration management and identity verification.
“These are not pie-in-the-sky promises,” he said.
“It is not a promise, it is actually a progress report.”
He said the combination of stronger immigration controls, biometric verification systems, Smart IDs and Digital IDs would not only help authorities deal with people who are in the country illegally, but would also prevent future abuses of South Africa’s immigration and identity management systems.
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