Thailand has established the National Root Certification Authority (NRCA) to be an exchange center for domestic certification service providers, and to work with international certification authorities (CAs).
There are currently several CAs offering digital certificates and public key infrastructure (PKI) services running on different systems, so users face problems in interoperability.
The Electronic Transactions Commission, which oversees e-commerce, has agreed to a trust model in the establishment of the NRCA, and the ICT Ministry has assigned the Government Information Technology Services (GITS) to run the NRCA.
As one of the four major CAs in Thailand, GITS will stop issuing digital certificates to its existing customers and will gradually transfer its customers to other CAs, which might be TOT, CAT or Thai Digital ID, according to GITS director Dr Sak Segkhoonthod.
According to Dr Thaweesak Koanantakool, deputy director of the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), the various digital certificates for electronic transactions has been issued by several CAs, requiring a mechanism to verify the authenticity of the different systems.
The NRCA will facilitate the exchange of digital certificates from different CAs, as well as being the center of interoperability with CAs abroad. The NRCA will also enhance trust and reduce the complexity of electronic transactions, both domestically and internationally, he said.
At the regional level, the Asean CA-to-CA project will shortly undergo trial runs between the CAs of the Asean countries and business organizations which utilize PKI. Thailand is the host of the project. The trial will start in March, and will involve Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand.
In 2007, the Thailand PKI Forum was transformed into an association that led to the establishment of the NRCA. The operational framework of the NRCA covers certificate services, preparation of hardware and software, interoperability with overseas CAs, registration of licensed CAs and PKI issues.
In 2008 and 2009, the NRCA and other CAs will work on issues of self-regulation, collaboration, licensing CAs, interoperability with other countries, object identifier (OID) registration, CA regulation standard, and international collaboration.
Play video
Secure the "Next-Gen SOA Infrastructure" & "Bringing SOA Value Patterns to Life" whitepapers here
» Maximum flexibility with powerful blade technolgy
There are currently no comments for this post.