KUWAIT: Finishing most paperwork and transactions will be easier through a new project launched yesterday by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI). It's the Electronic Signature project. The electronic signature system is one of the basic infrastructure of the e-government. "This system allows the public and private sector to expand the services they provide for the public through their websites on internet and electronic services. PACI is responsible for verifying the identity of individuals through the Civil ID card, which is stuck to them in all their paperwork.
As the different public and private institutions are now providing their services through the internet and electronic media, and in order to go along with the modern technology and the large use of internet and electronic dealing, led PACI to do its role in verifying the ID of the users through the electronic signature project throughout the smart ID card," said Director General of PACI Mosaed Al-Asousi yesterday. This project consists of two parts; the electronic certification and a secret number. "PACI will issue a certificate of electronic verification, which will be saved in the electronic chip of the smart ID.
The user will then choose a secret number to activate the certificate of electronic verification when using the electronic signature on the electronic transactions," he added. In order to get this service the user should visit the PACI building in South Surra. "The certificate of electronic verification will be issued upon a demand of the user who can finish the necessary demands at PACI through passing his smart ID to the employee, who will place it in a machine that will save and issue the certificate of electronic verification in the electronic chip of the smart ID. Then the user will enter a secret password to activate the certificate, which will be used when he needs to prove his ID at the electronic transactions," stressed Al-Asousi.
"This will make the paperwork easier for both the citizens and expatriates, as they will be able to finish their transactions while sitting in front of the PC and can access their files at the different institutions through using the secret password," he further said. The electronic certification port is connected to different websites of public and private institutions. "When accessing certain site, the user will enter his smart ID to the reader. The electronic certification port will then demand the password to verify his ID, as it's connected with the PACI infrastructure system. This will provide safety for all parties in this transaction, and will remove the fears of many institutions that refuse to provide their services, to protect the data from being viewed by others," he explained.
The electronic certification port is currently connected to the official electronic gate of Kuwait in order to allow all public institutions to benefit from this service. "A technical team from Kuwait Oil Company was formed to allow the company to benefit from this service. Furthermore this project was proposed to the banking sector and it's in process now to see how they can exploit the electronic signature. PACI will cooperate with any institution to provide this service and simplify work," concluded Al-Asousi. The ceremony was held under the auspices of the Deputy Prime Minister, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of PACI, Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, who said that this project is a great achievement for Kuwait.
"This project was designed according to the top modern tools used internationally in verifying electronic IDs.
Also the safe and secret measures applied internationally were used in this project. the electronic signature will save time and efforts, and simplifies the procedure in safe way. In addition it allows the public institutions to provide even more services related to private data of individuals, with the safety of being confidential," he noted. The smart civil ID was basically issued for the citizens as its cost is expensive and not worth changing every year as many expatriates have residency for one year only. Recently PACI expanded issuing the smart civil ID for some expatriates; those who are treated as Kuwaitis and expatriate employees working in the public sector.
© Kuwait Times 2012
