{"id":345350,"date":"2019-10-09T10:55:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T08:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=345350"},"modified":"2019-10-09T10:55:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T08:55:07","slug":"south-africas-new-e-visa-system-is-launching-in-november-heres-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/345350\/south-africas-new-e-visa-system-is-launching-in-november-heres-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s new e-visa system is launching in November &#8211; here&#8217;s what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa will trial a new e-visa system in November, making it easier for tourists to enter the country thanks to the online capture of visa applications and biometric information.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to BusinessTech, Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said that the pilot aims to test the resilience of the system, with the department already holding successful trials in a controlled environment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The pilot will be conducted with Kenya first at the OR Tambo and Lanseria airports,&#8221; he said. &#8220;At the end of the month, we will evaluate the project and look at which other countries to expand the e-visa system to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Qoza added that the system is quick and has been designed to be as user-friendly as possible.<\/p>\n<p>He estimated that the entire application process would take around 20 minutes, provided the applicant has all of the necessary supporting documents ready for submission.<\/p>\n<p>Should one of the required documents be missing, applicants can resume the process exactly where they left off at a later date, he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>E-gates<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Qoza also confirmed that Home Affairs was working with the Aiport Company South Africa (Acsa) to pilot e-gates at the country&#8217;s airports.<\/p>\n<p>While Qoza was hesitant to confirm when the these systems would be introduced, Home Affairs said in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/309848\/what-you-need-to-know-about-south-africas-new-e-visas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April<\/a> <\/strong>that the e-gates would be introduced in a phased approach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The broad objective of the project is the facilitation of movement of low-risk travellers through a self-service solution, hence freeing capacity for the assessment of high-risk categories by an immigration officer,&#8221; the department said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In line with the risk-based approach to managing migration, the first phase will focus on South African passport holders (excluding minors).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With the e-gates pilot at Cape Town International Airport, South African passport holders travelling internationally will proceed to e-gates for self-service immigration clearance where the following would be performed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Biometric verification;<\/li>\n<li>Passport authenticity and validity checks;<\/li>\n<li>Checks against the BMCS risk engine; and<\/li>\n<li>The BMCS will record the movements of persons on the system after all system checks have been successfully performed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Home Affairs said that the e-gates project will help address the key issue of traveller identification management, which is at the heart of secure and facilitated travel.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/344944\/new-visa-changes-coming-to-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New visa changes coming to South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa will trial a new e-visa system in November, making it easier for tourists to enter the country thanks to the online capture of visa applications and biometric information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":292744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-345350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345350"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345398,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345350\/revisions\/345398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}