DIGITAL IDENTITY: DRAFT REGULATIONS OUT FOR COMMENT

DIGITAL IDENTITY: DRAFT REGULATIONS OUT FOR COMMENT

• 05 May 2026
• Home Affairs
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Home Affairs has called for input by 6 June 2026 on draft regulations intended to ‘clarify the status of digital ... credentials as an additional form of identity’ to  be used alongside Smart ID cards.

Once finalised and in force, the proposed new regulatory framework ‘will enable citizens to store, access and utilise secure digital versions of their identity document, birth certificate, marriage certificate and other Home Affairs products directly on their smartphone, and introduce the ability for users to remotely confirm their identity using biometric verification’.

This is according to a media statement on the draft regulations, which were gazetted on 5 May 2026 and backdated.

Against that backdrop, they:

• prescribe standards for enrolment, biometric capture and digital identity credentials assurance
• lay the foundation for:
  • public-private sector interoperability, and
  • the delivery of certain government services in digital format, amd
• improve existing safeguards on identity information sharing with accredited institutions.

In turn, this is expected to:

• ‘greatly enhance’ the department’s ability to combat identity theft, financial crime, corruption and illegal immigration, and
• ‘strengthen the population register as the single authoritative record of identity and civic status information’.

Please click the links below for more information:

• draft regulations
• media statement

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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