Innovation aimed at eliminating fraud

Fraud involving identity theft and fake qualifications is widespread in South Africa, but a young innovator from Botha's Hill, a small town outside Hillcrest in KwaZulu-Natal, has come up with an invention that should make document fraud much more difficult.

Mandla Dlamini's document certification machine, designed to verify the legitimacy of a document before it is certified, is being piloted at the Mariannhill Police Station in Pinetown. The machine reduces the risk of personal documents being stolen and later used for fraudulent activities.

Dlamini came up with the idea in response to the long queues for document certification at police stations. In some areas, people also have to travel long distances to get documents certified.

Dlamini was able to have his concept developed by Anisa Ragalo (an independent software engineer who has a PhD in computer science from the University of KwaZulu-Natal) with support from the Department of Science and Innovation's Grassroots Innovation Programme. The programme, which is implemented by the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), connects people with ideas to experts who can help to realise them.

The machine certifies a document only after authenticating the copy against original documents scanned, uploaded and stored on the Cloud.

Discussions to get buy-in from institutions like Umalusi, the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training, are expected to start in due course, and Dlamini hopes that eventually all commissioners of oaths in South Africa will use his machine.

For now, the South African Police Service members in Mariannhill are using the innovation to certify firearm licences.

Col. Muziwendoda Twala, Station Commander at Mariannhill, is pleased to be involved in the project, as a lot of people in the high-crime area come to the police station to have their firearm certificates verified. The station is working with firearm sellers and has an existing database of people legally purchasing guns.

Dlamini said that his long-term goals were to reduce the number of fraudulent documents in South Africa and to build a document verification business that could survive beyond TIA's support. He encouraged other people to pursue their ideas to benefit society.

The Grassroots Innovation Programme is designed to identify and support grassroots innovators who do not have access to formal research or innovation facilities. They are given access to experts and facilities so that their inventions can be developed and commercialised, as well as to entrepreneurial and other skills development opportunities.