The Department of Home Affairs has announced massive changes to South African passport applications and collections.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi says these changes have been implemented to protect the integrity of the document.

This, as the department has observed an increase in high-profile cases of fraud and corruption involving passports in recent months.

Among the changes include the termination of transferrable and third-party collections, a new activation process that can only be completed by the applicant and passports being activated by a fingerprint, which will be compared to a photo.

The minister says this new process is the same method being used in Smart ID cards.

He stressed that passports collected in any other way will be of no use, and will not be activated.