The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) said yesterday it was still resolving the challenges where some of its customers were unable to access its online portal and would introduce measures to minimise the impact in the next few weeks.
“Business Report” has learnt that some CIPC customers were unable to access/log into the commission’s system to access its services online. Some said they have been experiencing this for about a month now.
The issue arose after the CIPC’s database was hacked last month with sensitive data of at least three million entities and individuals compromised.
At the time, as soon as the CIPC’s ICT technicians were alerted to a possible security compromise, certain CIPC systems were shut down immediately.
Lungile Dukwana, the chief strategy executive at the commission, which registers companies, co-operatives and intellectual property rights and maintenance, said yesterday in response to “Business Report” questions that the CIPC had had some instances where some of the customers were unable to be verified.
“As soon as we became aware of this we issued a customer notice to direct customers who were experiencing the challenge. We have also been engaged with the Department of Home Affairs in order to resolve this as it is caused by the system throttling from their side, which takes limited numbers of customers, slows down and times-out sometimes.
“In the meantime those who experience challenges with ID verification can send their emails to enquiries@cipc.co.za with your customer code as subject,” Dukwana said.
He said: “When they try to log in, they get a response that says: ‘Unsuccessful verification. The Department of Home Affairs is currently off-line. Please try again later.’”
Due to this issue, some small and medium-sized enterprise clients that offer company and co-operative registration services said that they were unable to render the services to their clients. Their clients were in turn unable to get the necessary services to be able to continue running their enterprises.
CIPC clients said they were unable to even log in to comply with the new verification method. They also say that they were unable to register businesses, update business information or access confirmation and the like to be able to institute claims for work/services rendered to be able to access payments.
At the beginning of last month, the CIPC said in line with securing customer accounts, it had implemented a new customer verification process for SA ID holders as well as foreign passport holders.
The CIPC continued to review their systems, processes and controls as may be necessary to improve its efficiency and customer experience.
“As such CIPC has deployed additional verification method layers in order to enhance (the) safety of our customers. The roll-out was successful as thousands of customers complied, were able to be verified and then accessed the system.
“For example between the 25th of March and today, 3 April 2024, we have processed 8 512 company registrations, 32 505 annual returns, 3 503 director amendments despite that the system was shut down due to financial year-end closure over the Easter weekend,” Dukwana said.
BUSINESS REPORT