South African ID Number Checker
Update 26 August 2010: A new and better version of this Excel file has been made available. Please go to South African ID Number Checker in Excel version 2 to get it. Update 11 August 2011: Want this as an app for your smartphone? Click here
A few days ago, I wanted to validate a list of ID numbers. Previously, I had done the basics—length, date, etc.—but this time I decided to do the full validation. So I searched for the rules and found this post, which explained it nicely and included some C# code. However, since I wanted to process an Excel spreadsheet, I created my own solution that performs the following checks:
- Length
- Valid date
- Date in the past
- Gender flag
- Nationality flag
- Check bit
I've hidden the calculation cells, so you can unhide them if you want to see the calculations. When I ran my list through it, the failures came in two forms: obvious failures (like 1000000000000) or check bit failures. Since I don’t know which entries in my list are real or valid, I’m unsure if the check bit is 100% reliable, but it worked fine for the real IDs I tested myself. Anyway, you can grab it from the attachments below (or get version 2 from the link above).
24 January 2010: I have disabled comments on this post as I’m receiving many requests about who ID numbers belong to, how to track people using IDs, or what someone’s ID is. I can’t answer those—I don’t work for the government, police, etc. If you have questions about the technical aspects of ID numbers, please contact me using the contact form.