Banks, Home Affairs join forces

November 8 2011 at 08:53pm

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Ziphoznke Lushaba

Banks can now directly verify their client's details online with the home affairs department in an attempt to curb fraud. Sabric chief executive Kalyani Pillay said the initiative was an opportunity to improve security.

Banks can now directly verify their client's details online with the home affairs department in an attempt to curb fraud.

The SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) launched the initiative in Pretoria on Tuesday in partnership with home affairs.

The system allows banks to determine whether an identity document presented by a client matches the records of fingerprints at home affairs.

Banks will in turn, have access to the home affairs national identification system (Hanis).

“This partnership underlines the confidence the banking industry has in the department as a partner in defence our identity,” Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.

She said the launch laid a firm basis to deal a blow against fraud, corruption and identity theft.

“Banks will not have full access to all information stored on the home affairs system. They can only check the validity of information given by a client. We are only giving them facility to verify with us.”

Sabric chief executive Kalyani Pillay said the initiative was an opportunity to improve security. It was not a commercial venture and no banks would pass the charges on to clients.

“This is one of many crime prevention measures we have. We want to get confirmation whether a person presenting documents to do a transaction is indeed the owner.”

The verification would be done before individuals performed transactions. Pillay said banks would contact their clients and inform them about the procedure.

Absa, African Bank, FNB, Capitec Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank and Mercantile Bank were at different levels of implementing the systems. - Sapa 

http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/banks-home-affairs-join-forces-1.1174085

FICA and Freezing of bank accounts

IMCOSA AUGUST NEWSLETTER
Fica and the Freezing of Bank Accounts


More and more foreigners with local bank accounts are experiencing problems when they apply for an extension or change of permit and do not receive their new permits before expiry of the original one. Certain banks have started, systematically and as a matter of policy, to freeze the bank accounts of foreigners on the day that their permits expire. The freezing is done irrespective of whether applications for extensions have been made to Home Affairs, and whether such applications were made well in advance of the expiry date. No intervention has been found to stop or reverse this and letters issued by the regional office of Home Affairs acknowledging responsibility for the delay, or even written support by the Banking Council, have fallen on deaf ears.





The effect of this is that law-abiding persons, apart from having to endure the stress of their new permits not arriving in time and them not being allowed to continue their work or other activity, now have the added pleasure of not being able to access their own funds, of debit orders not being processed, etc.





Fortunately, there are alternatives to this scenario and there are respectable banks who very well understand the problems caused by Home Affairs delays. The freezing of your bank account is therefore avoidable, provided that the necessary steps are taken in advance. Please approach our team if you have questions in this regard or require assistance.






http://imcosa.co.za/en/news/147-immigration-news-aug-2011.html

The dea(r)th of privacy rights — Home Affairs and the banks

by Chris Watters
Coming from the culture we do, where we lived with, and many by and large accepted the validity of, an all-seeing, all-knowing, ‘big brother' government, South Africans appear to have a schizophrenic attitude towards privacy rights. The high point of our demand for privacy probably occurs when we get those mid-dinner time phone calls from someone trying to sell us a free-ish holiday in Mauritius or those unsolicited text messages advertising some never to be repeated deal of a lifetime (at least not until the next day). It's probably only at that point that some will get steamed and wonder where these agencies got our details from. On the other hand, as part of our break from our twisted past, section 14 of the Bill of Rights has enshrined the right of "everyone" to privacy. And the Promotion of Access to Information Act [‘PAIA'] is tasked with finding a happy median between the demand for transparent governance and that right to privacy.

So it came with some surprise (or perhaps not) to see Home Affairs and the SA Banking Risk Information Centre applauding each other for the ‘strategic partnership' they had concluded recently. The stated aim of this partnership is to allow SA's banks to conduct online fingerprint verification of bank clients. This will be done by Home Affairs giving the banks "real time access" to Home Affairs' HANIS database of our fingerprints. Not the fingerprints of some criminal scum-bucket from some far flung failed state who is visiting South Africa, it is noted - because the fingerprints of casual visitors, irrespective of who they are or where they are from, do not get captured on the Home Affairs' database.

And the problem? Well, for starters, our fingerprints qualify as our "personal information" in terms of section 1 of PAIA. And section 34(1) of PAIA requires a public body to refuse any request for the disclosure of personal information "if its disclosure would involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information." But if the public body's information officer is contemplating the request, he or she is required to notify the third party "to whom ... the record [sought] relates...". And time frames are set out to allow for this and for appeals to take place if the third party objects to the intended disclosure.

So Home Affairs cannot lawfully allow the banks - or anyone for that matter - ‘real time access' to our fingerprints. Its not the Department's information to disclose as and when it suits them or the banks!

But, and here is where our ‘big brother' past creeps in, one can almost immediately hear the cry from Home Affairs or the banks of ‘what is objectionable about this unless we are guilty of something'and ‘what do we have to hide?'

The answer was set out very succinctly in a recent judgment of the Pretoria High Court by Bertelsmann J in Makhanya v Vodacom Service Provider [2010 (3) SA 79 GNP] where, citing authority in the US Supreme Court, he described the right to privacy as "the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men."

But, of course, we do not need to look to US authority to object to the banks fishing about our records at Home Affairs. The answer lies ultimately here at our back door - the Bill of Rights and PAIA say that such a disclosure would be unlawful. In PAIA, Parliament has set out a procedure to be followed if Home Affairs wants our permission to make these disclosures. The inquiry may have an entirely legitimate function and purpose and we may well have no objection. But PAIA requires that we should be asked first. And section 7 of the Bill of Rights demands that the state must "respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights" - not ignore them whenever it is deemed convenient or ‘reasonable' by some unknown bureaucrat. And apparently implied in this ‘strategic partnership' is that all such requests received from the banks, will be deemed reasonable - as least as far as their joint media release is concerned.

Ultimately, it boils down to whether or not, in implementing this strategic partnership, the banks and Home Affairs have any regard for our dignity, do they really respect their clients?


Chris Watters

  http://www.polity.org.za/print-version/the-dearth-of-privacy-rights-home-affairs-and-the-banks-2010-06-07