BEYOND THE GREEN BOOK: Inside South Africa’s revolutionary leap into the digital identity system

We can’t tell you exactly who should get the credit for the progress made in building out Mzansi’s digital public infrastructure future, but it does look like the Government of National Unity is working for us in a big way.

“South Africa is actually building the next evolution of that kind of digital identity system... what we are doing is we are now credentialising your identity in a verifiable format, where at the moment the Estonian solution is card-based ... what we are doing is now made in a purely digital format that’s on your smartphone.”

That was the explanation Lohan Spies, founder of DIDx, gave when Daily Maverick asked his views on the cooperation between Estonia and South Africa in this digital public infrastructure (DPI) journey.

You can trust him because DIDx is, by its own admission in the bio the company’s PR sent over ahead of our meeting in Techno Park, “a technology-based business that builds Africa’s trusted digital identity and payments infrastructure”.

Spies, a cybersecurity veteran who was building with blockchain before it was cool, founded the company in 2019 and established it as the continent’s most experienced builder of decentralised identity infrastructure.

He also shares Communications Minister Solly Malatsi’s sentiment that Estonia is “a reference point for a lot of DPI development that is happening, and there’s nothing wrong with observing best practice and how it can be useful for our context”.

Spies independently confirmed the minister’s claims that what we are building in South Africa is “not just a cut and paste … because the environments are different, and societal digital skills proficiency is also different”.

South Africa is undergoing a comprehensive digital migration designed to overhaul how civil registration, national security and public service delivery function.