The Department of Home Affairs has started moving away from the old system of paper records to digital storage in partnership with Statistics SA. The department has 286-million records‚ 90% on paper. At the launch of the digitisation of birth records in Pretoria on Wednesday, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said most of the records were of births‚ marriages‚ deaths‚ ID applications‚ naturalisation and permits, and they dated back to the late 1800s. Gigaba said having records primarily on paper was a huge burden because the space need to house them was scarce and expensive. "The time required for staff to physically locate and access individual records means lead times of weeks and months for many transactions‚ such as amendments and reprints of older birth and marriage certificates‚" Gigaba said. Paper records were vulnerable to loss‚ deterioration and fire‚ despite the care with which they were stored. "Digitising these records mean we will be able to access records quickly." H...
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