MEDIA RELEASE                                                                                           23 November 2016

Digitisation of Births and Deaths Registration

The use of technology by government will be given a major boost when the Department of Home Affairs and Statistics South Africa consolidate their resources for accelerated and efficient service delivery. The Minister of Home Affairs, Honourable Malusi Gigaba, together with the Statistician-General of South Africa, Dr Pali Lehohla, today launched a project on the digitisation of Home Affairs civil records.

The project aims to bridge the digital divide between the privileged and the underprivileged through universal access to data by authorised end-users. Through the use of digital technology from Stats SA, completed forms from Home Affairs with supporting documents will be converted from hard copies to electronic format for easy retrieval and storage, thus ensuring that the data is easily retrieved and securely stored.

The main objective of the project is the preservation of all the records (birth, marriage, death, etc.); amendments of records, documents provided by applicants, other Departmental record and Administrative records. The birth and the amendments of birth forms with supporting documents from Home Affairs will be scanned and converted into electronic copies. The documents will be barcoded with unique labels and delivered to Stats SA in batches of 200, upon which they will be scanned and converted into indexed images. The forms will later be scanned and returned to Home Affairs for archiving

“Home Affairs collaborated with Statistics South Africa on the project due to our capacity to handle large volumes of data and our advanced data processing resources. This partnership will afford government the opportunity of providing accelerated civil services to the country,” said Dr Lehohla.

The base year for the birth records is currently 2000 and all births from 2000 are part of the current records being processed as those older than 2000 have either formally received an ID document or Smart ID and all those born from April 2013 have an unabridged birth certificate.

Home Affairs records will be tracked through batch numbering and ID so that the location of the source records can be easily identified. “Just as the live capture system has revolutionised the process of applying for vital documents, so the digitisation of birth records will revolutionise the National Identity System. This project, in partnerships with Statistics South Africa, is of enormous importance to the country,” Minister Gigaba said.

For technical enquiries, contact:

Ms Kefiloe Masiteng

Deputy Director-General: Population and Social Statistics

Tel: 012 310 2109

Email: KefiloeM@statssa.gov.za

For media enquires contact:

Ms Lesedi Dibakwane

Tel: 012 310 8578

Cell: 082 805 7088

Email: LesediD@statssa.gov.za