South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, led by Minister Dr Leon Schreiber, has published draft regulations under the Identification Act of 1997 introducing a voluntary smartphone-based national digital ID designed to complement the existing Smart ID card. The draft establishes the technical and operational framework for the scheme, which will allow South African citizens and qualifying residents to enrol a digital identity credential on their smartphone.
The enrolment process requires biometric liveness detection to confirm the applicant is physically present, biometric comparison against the Department of Home Affairs’ existing biometric records, and cryptographic binding of the resulting credential to the specific enrolled device. The scheme is voluntary and is not intended to replace the physical Smart ID card. The underlying biometric database holds fingerprint and facial records for a substantial portion of the South African population.
The draft regulations also define a role for accredited private-sector trusted entities that can participate in the MyMzansi ecosystem, accepting the digital ID for customer onboarding, KYC checks, and service access. Participation targets banking, telecoms, and other regulated industries. The trusted-entity framework echoes the approach already in operation through South Africa’s bank-based digital ID network, which expanded to more than 840 branches at Absa and Discovery Bank in August 2025.
The MyMzansi draft builds on a sequence of digital identity infrastructure milestones. South Africa’s multi-agency digital ID platform agreement, signed in April 2025, brought Home Affairs, SARS, and the Border Management Authority onto shared biometric infrastructure. The biometric verification system underpinning MyMzansi also benefited from Home Affairs biometric system modernization completed in early 2025, which cut verification error rates from 50 percent to under one percent.
SITA’s citizen super app pilot, launched in September 2025, brought biometrically backed mobile service delivery into earlier government testing ahead of the new regulatory framework.
The device binding step, which cryptographically ties the credential to the specific smartphone used at enrolment, means that a credential cannot simply be transferred to another device without re-enrolling through the biometric verification process, a design choice that limits impersonation risk in the event a phone is lost or stolen.
The draft regulations are open for public comment until 6 June 2026. President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged a launch before the end of 2026, although the gazetted text does not commit to a specific implementation date.
Sources: TechCentral, South Africa Department of Home Affairs
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By Ji-seo Kim
