The South African Department of Home Affairs has opened a public tender to purchase 600 rugged, handheld biometric scanners designed to instantly verify the immigration status of any individual on the spot.
This technology will allow immigration officers to scan fingerprints and take facial photographs in the field, cross-referencing them directly with government databases without having to rely on physical paperwork.
Meanwhile, the Department of Home Affairs recently reported a 46% increase in inland deportations at the beginning of July, due to the initial digital upgrades managed by the Border Management Authority.
The government is also plunging into digital infrastructure to patch vulnerabilities in its current field systems, amid political and social pressure to tighten immigration enforcement.
This strategy is targeted at eliminating identity fraud in order to create a highly accurate verification loop which has been a bottleneck for field agents. The efficiency of this digital approach was proven during a 2025 pilot program in Cape Town’s District 6, where immigration officers used mobile scanners to quickly identify and arrest 25 undocumented foreign nationals whose data failed to match official state records.
According to the official specifications, the new mobile devices are built specifically for rigorous outdoor enforcement rather than comfortable office spaces. The units must run on an Android 10 operating system or higher, feature a minimum of 128GB of storage to log new data, and hold at least an eight-hour battery life. The devices must be fully waterproof and drop-resistant to survive active field operations. The built-in cameras are also required to meet international passport-quality standards, ensuring that any facial images captured on the streets can be permanently integrated into the national immigration database for future tracking.
South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber stated that giving field agents direct, remote access to central department records would completely change how immigration laws are enforced on the ground;
“This will increase the arrests on those found to be illegal in the country, as there will be an immediate response on status for contravention with the departmental legislation” – Schreiber
The department plans to sign a 36-month contract with selected vendor, with an option to extend the partnership for an additional two years. Meanwhile, the appointment of the supplier and the deployment of the first wave of scanners to field agents will begin across South African in late 2026.
