Skip to main content
Menu
♥ Donate
eventREF E-0094457Revised

Event record

A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made

Date
14 Jan 1981
Updated
30 Sep 2019
A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made

Under a proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act South Africans across race spectrum would have their fingerprints taken and recorded on a central fingerprint register. A uniform identity document was to be issued to all races. This Act was first passed in 1950.   It defined racial groups relatively loosely. The Population Registration Act determined people’s race classification, which in turn determined the implementation of many other racially based laws. One of the apartheid laws passed in the 1950s was the Group Areas Act, which determined where people of different racial groups could live. The Group Areas Act did not permit mixing of any groups.

Search events by date

What happened on your birthday?
View more events from this day

How we know this

  1. 01O’Malley, P. ‘1981’, from Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Dialog, [online], available at www.nelsonmandela.org.za (19 November 2012)
  2. 02South End Museum, ‘The Group Areas Act’, [online], available at www.southendmuseum.co.za (Accessed: 19 November 2012)
  3. 03Sunday Times, An appalling "science", [online], available at https://heritage.thetimes.co.za (Accessed: 19 November 2012)

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2012, December 20). A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094457

South African History Online (2012) 'A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made', South African History Online, 20 December. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094457 (Accessed: 31 July 2026).

South African History Online, A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094457, (accessed 31 July 2026).

"A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made." South African History Online, 20 Dec. 2012, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094457. Accessed 31 July 2026.

South African History Online. "A proposed amendment to the Population Registration Act is made." South African History Online. December 20, 2012. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094457.

Further reading

SAHO is free because readers fund it. Donate →