South African travellers are no longer required to have their biometrics captured when flying in and out of South African airports.
Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, announced yesterday (July 7) that the biometric system, which was rolled out for all passengers at airports last week, creating up to three-hour delays for both outbound and inbound travellers, has been updated. “As soon as the system reads a South African passport it now picks up that biometrics are not needed,” he explains.
Minister Gigaba said that during the rollout of the system it came to the Department of Home Affairs’ attention that it did not have sufficient personnel in order to process the movement of all passengers with biometrics.
He also said that the processing of South African travellers’ biometrics was an oversight as this information is superfluous because it is already contained in their ID documents.
According to the Minister, the system is now running smoothly and travellers are no longer experiencing delays.
The department is, however, advising travellers to proceed through security gates as soon as they have checked in for their flight, in order to avoid congestion at immigration counters.
