The National Information Technology Authority – (NITA-U) has this week announced the issuance of its first Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) license to Pos DigiCert. The scope of the license and registration by NITA-U covers the provision of Certification Services as well as Date & Time Stamp Services. PoS DigiCert, Mantra Technologies, and Digital Trust are part of the Joint Venture that was contracted by the Government of Uganda to establish and maintain the Digital Authentication and Electronic Signatures solution under the brand name UGPASS.
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UGPASS supports the use of advanced electronic signatures based on trusted and secure Public Key Infrastructure. The Joint Venture brings aboard over 22 years of experience in providing and developing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services.
This brings forth for the first time advanced electronic signatures compliant with the Electronic Signatures Act and as such admissible in Courts of Law. “UGPASS” enables Government agencies and businesses to create truly end-to-end digital channels by providing digital certificates for natural persons and qualified electronic seals for legal entities.
The traditional reliance on passwords and passcodes alone is now braced with security challenges as well as end-user fatigue on having multiple passwords for different systems given the increasing trend of digital services, mentioned Dr. Hatwib Mugasa, Executive Director at NITA-U.
Mr. Collin Babirukamu, Director of e-Government Services further mentioned that UGPASS enables users to utilize their existing smartphones to register for a securely verified digital certificate in order to authenticate themselves online for seamless and secure access to a variety of e-services and use advanced electronic signatures to securely e-sign documents.
This has the following benefits;
- High level of security
- High level of user assurance
- Non-repudiation of User operations.
The solution is compliant with the Electronic Signatures Act (2011) which provides an advanced electronic signature, verified with a qualified certificate, is equal to an autographic signature in relation to data in electronic form, and has therefore legal effectiveness and admissibility as evidence (Section 10). It also provides a message that shall be as valid, enforceable, and effective as if it has been written on paper it among other factors bears in its entirety a digital signature.
“UGPASS service supports a very high of assurance for proof of participants in an electronic transaction, proof that contents of the communication have not tampered with and verifiable security of electronic documents,” mentioned Arnold Mangeni, Director Information Security at NITA-U.
