Boosting Applications of Digital Signature in E-transactions

According to the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Information and Communications, applications of Information Technology (IT) and digital signature in administrative and commercial transactions could bring in great benefits. However, making institutions changing the traditional practice of using “red seal, live signature” would take a long time.

National Centre for Digital Signature Certification, many central ministries and branches have been applying digital signatures to online public services. However, the issue is still strange to agencies at department and district levels, and enterprises.

 

The government has made a legal framework to guide applications of e-transactions in all socioeconomic, national defence and security sectors, and national regulations in order to ensure equal and safe rights of the state, organisations and individuals in e-transactions.

 

Specifically, Decree No. 64/2007/ND-CP outlines a legal framework for boosting IT applications among state agencies; stipulates conditions to ensure quality of information infrastructure, information supply, and IT human resources development, etc; stipulates operations of state network agencies specializing in managing electronic documents, ensuring information safety and security; and using digital signatures in verifying electronic documents, etc.

 

In addition, the government has issued a number of decrees such as Decree No. 26 dated in 2007, Decision No. 06 in 2006, Decision No. 48 in 2009, etc. in order to enhance legality for state agencies and enterprises to apply e-transactions. Particularly, under the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 1605/QĐ-TTg dated on August 27, 2010, the Government assigned the Governmental Essential Affairs Committee (under the Ministry of Internal Affairs) to build up and develop systems of e-certification and digital signatures among state agencies.

 

Regarding state agencies, there are various types of e-transaction applications such as e-transactions at internal state agencies, e-transaction among state agencies, and e-transactions between state agencies and other agencies, organisations and individuals. However, e-transaction among state agencies must be certified by a state authorized e-transaction certification agency.

 

According to the Governmental Essential Affairs Committee, orientation for development of e-transaction and digital signature applications includes investment in equipment and facilities, communications, human resources, procedures, provided that the size is large enough to meet demand of political agencies so as to expand applications into the Central Centre and the Southern Centre.

 

In the southern region, only Ho Chi Minh City has applied digital signature in e-transactions at some units, which was carried out by the Department of Information and Communications. Meanwhile, other cities and provinces in the region have not yet applied this technology, which means that the demand for e-transaction applications at department and district levels and enterprises is very great. Reportedly, Can Tho City and some provinces in the Mekong Delta region have been boosting investment in infrastructure for this application.

 

Some units that have applied e-transaction and digital signature said they are facing a lot of difficulties during implementation, including piling up e-transaction dossiers but obviously dealing with paper transactions. On the other hand, officials who are in charge of processing dossiers still rely on a traditional mentality of using “red steals, live signature”, causing prejudice to e-transaction dossiers.

 

Up to date, only unit is capable to provide public digital authentication, thus, supplying of digital authentication is sometimes far from the real demand, particularly e-transactions of emergency.

 

An enterprise said that a hard copy of a tax declaration form often spares spaces for the maker, an accountant and a legal representative but e-transaction dossiers do not satisfy that requirement, hindering enterprise management.

 

In the meanwhile, the General Department of Taxation under the Ministry of Finance complained about the lack of an appropriate regulation on forms of storing and preserving electronic dossier, including whether electronic dossiers should be printed or not and how to transform paper dossiers into electronic dossier. Moreover, no proper regulations on methods of inspecting e-tax declarations have been mapped out.

 

Many institutions, particularly banks and political agencies worried about security of e-transaction and electronic dossier. In response, the IT Application Department under the Ministry of Information and Communications said e-transactions and digital signature have four main functions that are also benefits of this service including authentication (recognised as a signature that could not be falsified), security, impeccability (recognised as a seal on documents), and anti-disclaimer (as a way to prevent disclaimer to documents)

 

Regarding the function of authentication, this service allows sender and receiver of document certify information of each other easily, particularly the function of anti-disclaimer, ensuring that all documents are sent to receiver. For the function of security, it takes at least five years to crack a password, ensuring high safety.

 

Up to date, as many as 4,500 enterprises in Vietnam have registered digital authentication to make tax declarations via Internet. By end-August 2010, in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Danang City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province and Vinh Phuc Province, 1,496 enterprises had reported electronic tax dossiers with a combined 28,842 electronic tax declarations. By end-2010, electronic declarations are expected to be applied to 9,000 enterprises at 19 cities and provinces nationwide. The threshold for 2011 would be 10,000 enterprises and for 2012 would be 300,000 enterprises. However, tax agencies have faced a lot of difficulties in implementation of authentication, including the lack of regulation on digital signature storage, preservation, usage and commission, regulation on tax payer’s digital signature equivalent to seals and signature of enterprise’s legal representative. The term of suspended digital signature has not yet been mentioned in electronic documents and there has not yet existed regulation on time of storing electronic tax dossiers as a replacement for paper dossiers. Therefore, many enterprises have not yet fully understood about advantages of digital signature and electronic transactions, and still worried about safety and security of the service.

 

 

Enterprises that want to make custom declarations could make the declarations at home, at office at the expense of travelling to customs agencies as happened earlier. The declaration seems to be more objective that a decision of a certain customs agency as applied earlier. Otherwise, the computer system will automatically take consideration of information and customs officials must follow the computers’ decisions, ensuring equality. Application of digital signature in customs services are facing some difficulties as applications of e-customs must follow international norms and it is unable to apply a particular Vietnam’s standard to a multi-national company that has used a digital signature that was provided by a foreign companies and effective globally. A solution should be drawn out to deal with this matter synchronically, consistently and in line with international norms.

 

 

Building of PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) is encountering with a lot of difficulties including the lack of experience, the absence of national PKI, complicated PKI technology, using many new concepts, digital authentication not having standard applications and specific policies.

 

 

Up to date, as many as 79 units citywide have applied digital signatures. Apart from advantages, many disadvantages have been arisen, including the traditional mentality of using red deal and live signatures. Users still rely heavily on documents with red seals at the expense of digital signatures. Despite of difficulties, Ho Chi Minh City has been very patient in applying digital signature and become the “pioneer” in applying digital signatures in electronic transactions, bringing in a lot of benefits such as saving costs for enterprises and agencies that use the new service instead of the traditional transactions.
By Ha Linh