Former SA President Nelson Mandela is the first South African to receive the country’s new smart ID’s.

Delivered to him during his birthday last week, Madiba is among the first group of South Africans-over 80 years dubbed the ‘Mandela Generation’ who will receive the smart ID’s in phase one. They will be invited to South Africa’s Home Affairs offices according to their dates of birth. The first phase of the ID’s will be processed in 27 Home Affairs’ regional offices. Other offices  will gradually do so over the next three years.

Madiba’s new Smart ID card was delivered to him on his birthday by his daughter, Zindzi Mandela.

 According to Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor the smart ID’s are secure and durable as they are made of tamper-proof quality polycarbonate materials. The smart ID’s also have security features like holograms, laser engraving and personal details which can be seen physically and fingerprint biometrics and biographic data embedded smart ID’ 80KB chip. The physical and logical security features will make the ID’s tamper-proof and extremely difficult to forge.

In 8 years, all South African will have the smart ID’s said the Department of Home Affairs.