Your ID, Your Choice: LFN Pushes Back Against Digital Compulsion

Excerpt: LFN has formally pushed back against South Africa’s proposed Digital ID amendments, warning that a system presented as “voluntary” could quietly become compulsory in everyday life. The organisation’s detailed submission identifies major constitutional, privacy and drafting concerns, including loopholes that may expose citizens to excessive surveillance, data-sharing and indirect digital coercion.

Read LFN’s formal comment at the bottom of this article.

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Liberty Fighters Network has formally submitted its comments and objections to the proposed amendments to the Identification Regulations, 1998, published in Government Gazette No. 54610 on 4 May 2026. These amendments deal with the proposed introduction of Digital IDs in South Africa.

Let us be clear from the outset: LFN is not against technology merely because it is technology. A properly designed Digital ID can be useful. It can help when documents are lost, speed up verification, reduce fraud, and make life easier in certain instances. In fact, nobody wants to stand in a queue at Home Affairs longer than necessary. If a Digital ID can prevent that, many people will understandably say, “Where do I sign?”

But that is exactly where the problem starts.

The question is not whether Digital ID can be convenient. The question is what price the public will pay for that convenience.

LFN’s core position is simple: Digital ID may exist only as a voluntary option. It must never become mandatory, whether directly through law, indirectly through banks and service providers, or quietly through the back door of technology. A physical ID book or card must remain equally valid, equally accepted, and permanently available.

In our comments, we welcomed the fact that the draft regulations say a person “may”, but is not required to, apply for a Digital ID. That sounds good on paper. But paper promises mean very little if banks, mobile operators, employers, municipalities, schools, hospitals, insurers, landlords, security estates, airlines, or other institutions later start saying, “Sorry, we only accept Digital ID.” That would turn a supposedly voluntary system into a compulsory one in everyday life.

That is not freedom. That is digital coercion wearing a friendly smile.

LFN also identified a serious loophole in the current regulations. Regulation 15(d) already allows population-register information to be furnished in real-time or batch format to various persons, organisations, bodies, societies or institutions for a fee. If that old mechanism remains untouched, then the new so-called safeguards around Digital ID may be bypassed by simply buying access to population-register verification through the older route. That is like installing a new security gate at the front door while leaving the kitchen window wide open.

Another major concern is the repeated use of the word “person”. In ordinary speech, most people understand “person” to mean a human being. But in law, “person” can include companies, trusts, associations, bodies corporate and other artificial legal entities. In today’s world, where people are already debating AI systems, robots, digital agents and machine identities, loose wording can create serious future problems. A Digital ID system dealing with fingerprints, facial recognition, liveness detection, dignity, privacy and civic status must apply only to natural living human beings. A company cannot have a human face. A robot cannot have human dignity. An AI module must not sneak into human identity legislation through careless wording.

LFN therefore requested that the regulations use clear wording such as “individual” or “natural living human being” where human identity is intended, and “entity” where companies, banks, institutions or organs of state are intended.

We also objected strongly to private-sector enrolment. Banks and mobile operators may have duties under laws such as FICA or RICA, but that does not mean they should become outsourced Home Affairs offices. A bank may verify its customer. It should not become a biometric collector for the State. If private premises are used for convenience, the process must remain a Department of Home Affairs process, performed by Department personnel, using Department-controlled systems.

LFN further warned against identity assurance levels creating a two-tier society. If digitally active, urban, banked citizens receive “higher trust” status while rural, elderly, poor, unbanked or privacy-conscious citizens are treated as “lower trust”, then the system will not merely identify people. It will rank them. That is dangerous.

We also objected to any inclusion, storage, display, inference or transmission of race, BBBEE classification, employment-equity classification, health status, vaccination status, political persuasion, religion, trade union membership or similar sensitive information through Digital ID infrastructure. An identity document must prove who you are. It must not become a racial tag, health passport, political marker, social-credit tool or digital leash.

Several technical errors were also identified. These include an incorrect reference to the Identification Act, 2002, while the applicable statute is the Identification Act, 1997; missing paragraph lettering; incorrect cross-references; and uncertainty about whether the regulations are merely being amended or replaced. These may sound small, but in legal drafting, small errors become big disputes. If government cannot get the references right in the draft, the public is entitled to be nervous about what may happen once biometrics, private entities, APIs, databases and automated decisions enter the picture.

LFN’s message to the Department is therefore straightforward: withdraw the draft in its current form, alternatively amend it properly and republish it for meaningful public comment. The public must first see the full framework, including draft instructions, data-sharing agreements, impact assessments, cybersecurity readiness, operational safeguards and plain-language explanations.

Digital ID must serve the people. The people must not become servants of Digital ID.

South Africa does not need a digital dompas. It needs lawful, voluntary, rights-based identity reform that protects dignity, privacy, choice and freedom. Technology must remain a tool in the hand of the citizen, not a chain around the citizen’s neck.