self-help service
23 March 2009
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) today Monday, 23 March 2009, announced
the activation of the Alive Status Verification Service as part of its Track
and Trace system for Identity Document (ID) status verification.
The purpose of the service is to assist South Africans to check their status
to ensure that they have not been fraudulently declared dead on the population
register. The Department of Home Affairs has introduced the self-help service
to make it easier for citizens to interact with the department without having
to visit the department's offices.
The Alive Status Verification is the fourth self-help service run on the
department's Track and Trace system that can also be used to track ID book and
passport applications and verify marriage status.
Clients are advised to use either the department's website or SMS to verify
their alive or deceased status.
* To use the website, people should visit http://www.dha.gov.za and click on check your
status (at the top left corner of the homepage) and choose ID status
verification (alive/deceased). They will be required to enter their ID number
and press the verify button to see if they are "alive" or "deceased."
* Using the SMS service, clients can type in the letter L, followed by the
ID number to 32551. A reply SMS will then be sent back confirming status as
either "alive or "deceased." Each SMS costs R1 charged by the client's network
service provider.
The two options are also supported by the department's call centre on 0800
60 11 90 through which clients can call in to find out about their alive or
deceased status.
In an event that a person is registered as "deceased" when they are still
alive, they must report to a local home affairs office with an affidavit,
obtained from a police station, confirming that they are alive.
The Department of Home Affairs will, on submission of an affidavit as proof
of their alive status, ask the complainant to fill in a form and take full set
of fingerprints to investigate how the client was declared "dead" on the system
and will report back within a few weeks to the client on the outcome of its
investigation.
For more information please contact:
Siobhan McCarthy
Tel: 012 810 7338
Cell: 082 886 6708
E-mail: Siobhan.mccarthy@dha.gov.za
Joseph Mohajane
Tel: 012 810 6315
Cell: 082 909 3543
E-mail: joseph.mohajane@dha.gov.za
Thabo Mokgola
Tel: 012 810 7242
Cell: 082 902 8414
Fax: 012 810 7032
E-mail: thabo.mokgola@dha.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Home Affairs
23 March 2009
