From Business Day Live.

Altech Card Solutions, a South African high tech group, has been awarded a multimillion-rand contract to provide card personalization machines and an automated mailing solution for smart identity cards, the Department of Home Affairs said Thursday.

Starting in July, South Africa will begin phasing out the country’s little green ID books and replacing them with smart ID cards, according to a report in Business Day Live.

The smart cards will have embedded microchips storing information such as fingerprints, which can be verified by a specially made card reader. The Department of Home Affairs said it hopes this will make it impossible for the card to be forged.

The launch of the smart ID card “must be viewed as culmination of decades of struggle by our people to reclaim their identity and citizenship,” Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor said, according to Business Day Live.

South African citizens and residents age 16 and older must carry an identity document, according to the Department of Home Affairs. You need it to apply for a credit card, car loan or cell phone. The identity document is separate from the South African passport, which is available only to citizens.

Gemalto Southern Africa was awarded a multimillion-rand contract to supply blank, preprinted polycarbonate cards containing contact-less microchips.

Read more at Business Day Live.