SA DL Parserr

Decrypt and Parse
PDF417 on South African DL's

Empower your application with barKoder's SA DL Parser—designed to accurately decrypt and parse info within PDF417 barcodes on South African Driver's Licenses in real time.

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barKoder SA DL Parser

barKoder’s SA DL parser is designed to automatically extract structured identity data from PDF417 barcodes found on South African driver’s licenses and ID cards, in compliance with the official SA DL/ID Card Data Standard.

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Whether you're verifying identity for onboarding, KYC, access control, or fleet management, barKoder instantly returns clean, labeled fields from a single scan.

barKoder’s parser decodes and organizes the SA DL barcode data into structured fields, which are then returned in a developer-friendly JSON format, with key–value pairs mapped to the SA DL data elements, like so:

{
		"first_name": "Alex",
		"last_name": "Johnson",
		"license_number": "D12345678",
		"address": "123 Main St",
		"city": "Cape Town",
		"province": "Western Cape",
		"postal_code": "8000",
		"dob": "1990-02-12",
		"issue_date": "2022-01-01",
		"expiry_date": "2030-01-01"
	}
	

code snippet JSON:

What is SA DL?

The South African Driver's License (SA-DL) defines the standard for driver’s license barcode data across South Africa.

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Most provinces use PDF417 barcodes on the back of ID cards to encode information according to the accepted SA-DL specifications, such as:

  • Full name (first, middle, last)
  • Address (street, city, state, ZIP)
  • Date of birth
  • Document number (DL/ID)
  • Issue and expiration dates
  • Jurisdiction and class info
  • Gender and eye color
  • Optional fields like donor status, endorsements, restrictions

Features of the SA DL Parser

  • Compliant with AAMVA DL/ID Card Standard v1.0.0 – v8.0
  • Works offline and in real-time
  • Parses fixed and optional data groups
  • Handles all U.S. states and most Canadian provinces
  • Includes check digit and formatting validation
  • Cross-platform support: iOS, Android, Web, Desktop

SA-DL Parsing Use Cases

  • Automotive: Car rental and fleet check-in
  • Government: ID Verification, Law enforcement or event security
  • Hospitality: Visitor management systems
  • Healthcare: Insurance and healthcare onboarding
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Barcode Scanner by barKoder

The Barcode Scanner by barKoder app will provide you with an easy-to-use tool designed to showcase the versatility and functionality of our Barcode Scanner SDK in capturing all supported barcode formats, including DPM-engraved Data Matrix codes.

Apart from the plethora of useful features, including a variety of options when it comes to exporting the results of each successful barcode scan, you’ll have access to a specially designed DPM scanning template containing all optimum DPM decoding settings.

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iOS

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Android

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