HCM CITY (Biz Hub)— The Ministry of Information and Communications is working on a decree on accepting foreign digital certification as part of a programme to advance the use of digital signatures and e-transactions.

Many government agencies and businesses use digital signatures, but the Government allows only chip maker Intel Corp to use digital signatures certified by foreign firms for online transactions.

The draft decree spells out how foreign certifying agencies would be allowed to operate in Viet Nam and the various foreign digital certificates that would be accepted in the country.

Speaking at a conference on drafting laws on e-transactions held by the Ministry of Information and Communications last week in Ha Noi, Dao Dinh Kha, director of the National Centre for Digital Signature Certification, said Viet Nam has created a legal framework for digital signatures and digital signature certification services.

The decree will assist with the enforcement of e-transaction laws on digital signatures, digital signature certification services, and others.

There are nine agencies in Viet Nam offering digital signature certification services, and they have issued more than 300,000 digital certificates so far.

Official agencies have issued tens of thousands of licences online by using digital signatures, thus saving themselves a lot of time, money, and effort.

But Kha said the use of digital signatures remains limited in the country.

Their most common use now is for online tax declarations.

It is expected that the demand for digital signature certification in securities transactions, e-banking and online public service would increase sharply from individuals, according to Kha.

But the most important requirements are safety, confidentiality, consistency, and accuracy, he said.

Challenges

One of the hurdles to the use of digital signatures is that some documents require to be stamped too and there is no digital equivalent for this .

The new decree will enable digital signatures of authorised persons to be used in place of physical signatures. But, in practice, there are many kinds of signatures — like those on behalf of someone, those under authorisation – that cannot be replicated electronically.

The large number of stamps normally required on documents also makes it difficult to use digital signatures.

A major problem in the use of electronic signatures is possible forgery. — VNS