Philippines Lays Groundwork of Accreditation Scheme for Information  Certifiers of E-signatures

The Bureau of Product Standards of the Department of Trade and Industry (BPS-DTI), lays the groundwork on the Accreditation Scheme for Information Certifiers of Electronic Signatures, pursuant to Republic Act (R. A.) 8792 or the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000, through the DTI-DOST Joint Department Administrative Order No 02 Series of 2001 Providing Implementing Rules and Regulations on Electronic Authentication and Electronic Signatures.

As such, a Task Force on the Accreditation of Information Certifiers on E-Signatures was created under the leadership of BPS.  The task force has conducted a series of consultative meetings with the National Computer Center, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Commission on Audit, and the private sector led by the Information Technology and E-Commerce Council (ITECC) to solicit insights and comments in the preparation of the criteria, guidelines, and system of the scheme.

With this voluntary accreditation, DTI aims to “encourage and promote the development of electronic commerce in the

Philippines; enhance the country’s competitiveness in the new economy”; and most importantly, “protect the consumer through efficiency and transparency in commercial transactions”.

The BPS has finalized and published standards to be used as guidelines in the accreditation of information certifiers of E-signatures. These are PNS/ISO/IEC (Philippine National Standard/International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission) 17799-1:2002 – Information Technology – Code of practice for information security management, and, PNS 2004:2258 Information Security Management– Part 2: Specification for information security management system, based on the British Standard BSI 7799-2:1999. 

The drafts of these standards have been circulated for six months for comments among the industry, consumer organizations, academe, and other government offices before finalization and publication. 

Recently, the Bureau also conducted a number of public hearings on the department’s administrative order, entitled, “Prescribing rules and regulations on the Accreditation of Information Certifiers of E-Signatures”.  Issues and concerns from these assemblies are now being considered to finalize the DAO.

The DAO specifies accreditation guidelines that are based on the Infocom Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, and the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), specifically in Certificate Policy and the Certification Practice Statement of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

With the completion of the system procedures of the scheme in the first quarter of 2003, the Accreditation Scheme for Certification Authorities of Electronic Signatures will be launched in the second quarter of 2003.

For more information on the scheme, call 890-4852 or 890-4924.