Johannesburg – The identification of hundreds of unknown and unclaimed deceased bodies across Gauteng Forensic Pathology Service (FPS) mortuaries has now been made easier.
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi together with MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko on Thursday unveiled the digital fingerprint system, which will be used to identify deceased bodies at the 11 FPS mortuaries in the province.
This digital innovation will help improve the quality of fingerprints collected as it uses biometric scanners and third-party access to the databases of the Department of Home Affairs, South African Police Service (SAPS), and National Credit Bureau to identify deceased bodies.
MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko said that the introduction of the system stands as one of the transformative milestones in the field of forensic pathology.
This innovative technology will improve the quality of fingerprints collected from the deceased resulting in an improved identification rate which in turn will lead to the tracing of families of known unclaimed bodies, said MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko.
The system was piloted in January 2023 at five Gauteng FPS mortuaries, which include Bronkhorstspruit, Johannesburg, Diepkloof, Pretoria, and Ga-Rankuwa.
To test the efficiency of the system, a sample of 65 body trace requests were done and 61 of these were successfully identified, with 25 families traced.
Four of the bodies were found to have fraudulent identities.
There are 841 unidentified bodies at FPS mortuaries in the province.
As many as 150 bodies have been identified using fingerprints sent to the police, however, they are still unclaimed by their next of kin.
Efforts to trace the families are underway which involve using the super trace links to credit bureaus, adverts in the local newspapers, and cooperation with the SAPS to assist with the tracing.
Of the unknown deceased people, 691 are unidentified due to various reasons such as burns and skeletal remains and undocumented individuals.
These would then be handed over to various municipalities for paupers burials.
The piloting of the digital fingerprint system was sponsored through the Department of Public Service and Administrations Centre for Public Service Innovations replication project which has allowed the GDoH to now rollout the system across the province.
