South Africa plans to create unique identities for its citizens and issue instant visas as it digitises its economy.
The South Africa n Revenue Service, the Reserve Bank and the department of home affairs are working towards a unique digital identity, the tax authority’s boss Edward Kieswetter said at an event last week.
“The absence of a digital identity means that in South Africa I have an ID number, I have a tax number, I have” one for registering a company and another for being a hospital patient, Kieswetter said. “I appear in the system in many different identities which allows for arbitrage — so I can be employed and get a social grant because the system doesn’t pick me up.”
Sars, the Reserve Bank and the department of home affairs are working towards a unique digital identity The revenue authority is also working with home affairs to issue instant visas using existing technology that allows it to issue tax assessments in under five seconds, according to Kieswetter. “The fact is the technology is there, so they are working with us to develop a proof of concept for instant visas,” he said.
The department of home affairs is “amending its five-year strategic plan and annual performance plan to embed digital transformation and inter-agency collaboration” into its work, its spokesman Duwayne Esau said. “It is still early days as this planning process remains a work in progress,” he said in a text message Tuesday.The work we do at TechCentral is made possible through the support of our commercial partners.
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