Pushing down the road to full governmental electronic delivery, the Australian government is about to set down the specifications for digital signatures which will be given to every business in Australia.
The government said in a statement
that it intends to “develop a digital signature process for use by Australian
businesses in dealing with public sector agencies.”
The new digital
signature will be linked to the Australian Business Number, as one of both
will be issued to every Australian company, of which there are 2.1 million.
Its official name will be ABN-Digital Signature Certificate, or ABN-DSC.
The Australian Tax Office has been the
most active within the public sector in trying to drag small businesses
into the age of electronic service delivery – all in an effort to save time
and money as part of the tax reform program of the Federal Liberal
Government.
Strong take-up of the ABN and the ABN-DSC together would mean
not only that the ATO would save money on employees and other resources,
but experts have theorised that it may also benefit from being able to
monitor business activities far more effectively, as it would enable
cross-matching of transactions and corporate relationships.
While details of what the certificate will look like have yet to be
released, documents released by
the government indicate that it will be “interchangeable” with the
certificate already developed by the ATO, which conforms to the X.509
standard. The ATO is expected to be able to accept ABN-DSCs by the end of
the year 2000, according to the documentation.
The certificates will only be able to be issued by certificate authorities
which have been certified under Project Gatekeeper, the Australian
Government’s overarching system for a public key infrastructure.
To avoid
the prospect of needing a “key ring” of multiple redundant certificates to
deal with various public sector organisations, once a Government agency has
issued an ABN-DSC to an Australian business, other agencies will be bound
to accept the certificate for other transactions in all but “exceptional
circumstances”.
“The government will shortly be releasing specific details of the digital
signature, and will be encouraging State Governments to take it up,” said
Peter McGauran, Acting Minister for Communications, Information Technology and
the Arts. “All Commonwealth agencies will be expected to use the ABN
when identifying businesses and, similarly, the ABN-based digital signature
for authenticating online transactions with business.”
After the specifications have been set, the next step for government
agencies will be choosing a vendor to provide the software, in a field
which is already seeing juicy multi-million dollar contracts being awarded
to the like of Baltimore
Technologies and Secure Network
Solutions.
The agencies will require the vendors to display the
interoperability in a series of tests, possibly involving adherence to
international standards, according to the documents released by the
Government.
The first applications for the ABN-DSCs are expected to be a Business
Exchange, where businesses can update their details and upload statutory
reports online, and a Government Supplier Register of companies which
public sector agencies use for procurement.
