22 May South Africa to expand biometric border control systems

Plans to upgrade and expand infrastructure providing biometric passenger checks at some of South Africa’s ports of entry have been approved by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

Thulani Mavuso announced the plans whilst updating members of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home affairs. The new project to be implemented at the ports of entry is under the name “Biometric Movement Control Systems.”

The BMCS project will see to biometrics being installed at 34 new ports of entry, as a result leading to a total of 72 ports utilizing this form of access control, alongside this, added connectivity will be implemented to ports already linked to the BMCS.

While they are looking forward to improving on the internet connectivity bandwidth at some of those ports, alternative power sources will equally be installed at others given the biting load-shedding problem in the country.

The intention is to complete all the upgrade in the first two quarters of the 2023/2024 budget, with a date set of March 31st next year, to be the deadline for the project.

The goal of the project is to enable authorities to keep track of who is moving what, where within the country, adding to the security in the region, in the process.