E-signatures promoted for safer online services

The government is promoting the use of digital signatures to make online services for government and commerce more secure.

Digital signatures have been making the growing number of E-commerce and E-government services safer, an official told a conference in HCM City on Tuesday.

The E-services that are widely used in Hanoi, HCM City and other provinces to speed up licensing, export procedures and business, still have not gained everybody’s trust as people remain wary that their personal information would get into the wrong hands, said Tran Huu Linh, deputy director general of the Vietnam e-Commerce and Information Technology Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

A recent government survey conducted of more than 2,000 enterprises indicates concern that network security was one of the three biggest obstacles to e-commerce. The two other reasons were people prefer to do business face-to-face and there was low awareness of e-com.

The ministry has introduced e-services for export license issuance and authenticating online toxic chemical declarations. Online licensing has helped streamline the application process to 5-10 days, instead of 20 days. The ministry will prioritise the adoption of online services by 2012.

The general Department of Taxation also plans to set up online personal tax declarations, the department’s deputy director general said.

The ministry already issued 3,500 digital certificates or signatures, which prove the authenticity of digital messages or documents, to more than 2,500 enterprises before July 2010.

Five Vietnamese enterprises are licensed to supply digital certification services – VNPT, Viettel, Bkis, Nacencomm and FPT. Currently e-signatures haven’t been recognised overseas but the government aims to fix that in five years.

 

Category: Business