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Subject: Cross-border e-Government Identification Issues
PKI-TC: The following is a view of mine,
but I think that the question is of general interest as e-Governments represent
a very large class of PKI-users. It fits the "PKI hurdles
department".
Dear e-Government architects,
The following highlights a rather controversial
issue that definitely do not represent current e-government
agendas.
However, some decisions taken today can in
fact have a major impact on tomorrow.
Many e-governments have signed-up external
ID-providers like banks to cater for things like digital certificates for
citizens. As banks' natural "habitat" is money, they have in most cases
"converted" these ID-services into something which is is conceptually very
similar to payment systems. In Sweden to take an example, citizen
certificates are free, and distributed from the on-line banks directly to the
end-users' PCs. The "receivers" (the e-government authorities) on the
other hand, pay something like 0.25 EURO for each status-check. This level
is "inspired" by the cost of an ordinary postal stamp. I believe this
cost may thwart some more frequent e-government services, but that's another
story.
The future problem I see with this is, that without a de-facto monopoly like VISA, it will be hard to process and accept signed messages crossing the borders of these usually only regional, national, or commercial "trust-networks". Some of these trust networks even make it impossible to verify signatures, as only "valid" (paying) receivers are allowed to get the CA-root. Only in Sweden, there are four competing trust-networks, each requiring a contract with the receiver as well as having their own transaction fees and proprietary technical solutions. Unless one see a value in creating
an ID monopoly, I think that e-governments should rather pay ID-providers for
issuing certificates using a fixed or subscriber-based "cost-model", to not
de-facto create new payment networks, financed by tax-money. A
further advantage of that is that private enterprises could then without
hesitation use the same infrastructure. Due to the fact that no
matter what you do, e-government ID-systems will be tax-financed, there
is little reason for imposing usability limitations at this early
stage.
Long-term, I see a possibility that citizens
may actually directly pay something like 10-20 EURO yearly for owning
a universal electronic identity, but that requires numerous of useful e-gov and
other services, as well as a standardized mobile "container" to carry IDs
in. Such a switch may take another 5 years to become technically and
commercially feasible.
Just my 2 öres...
regards
Anders Rundgren
Independent consultant, PKI and secure
e-business
+46 70 - 627 74 37
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