By Emeka Aginam

As part of the federal government effort to chart a new course for the emergence of a digital economy, the National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA) will soon come out with a comprehensive document on public key infrastructure blueprint for Nigeria.

A public key infrastructure is a collection of security technologies, procedures, processes, and policies that collectively provide a framework for addressing, using cryptography, the fundamental security issues of policy, authentication, integrity, non repudiation and access control in data communication.

When implemented
The blueprint, when fully implemented, according to NITDA Director General, Prof. Cleopas Angaye at the just concluded public presentation of the draft PKI held in Lagos last week would satisfy the yearning and aspiration of the industry and provide a launching pad for the eventual emergence of digital economy which many believe was long overdue. The second workshop was part of the ongoing engagement to evolve an acceptable blueprint for the implementation of PKI in Nigeria.

Benefits
According to the DG, some of the benefits of KPI implementation will include the following:

Creation of digital signatures which is evidence of who did what to whom”, that is critical to electronic transactions carrying high legal risks or compliance requirements

PKI when integrated into smart-cards is recognized as “the only practical solution [to eavesdropping and account hijacking] today.”

Digital certificates can convey authority information like credentials, licenses, affiliations among others – and digital signatures bind that authority information directly to messages, to decentralize and greatly simplify transaction processing.

PKI digital signatures are persistent over both time and “distance”.

At essentially any future time, a digitally signed transaction can be easily re-validated to detect where it originated.

*The integrity of digitally signed data is not reduced by being copied or forwarded across systems or across borders.

“So PKI is uniquely suited to complex transaction environments, where there might be multiple relying parties, structured data, formal authorizations, and/or long lifetimes. KPI is the only technology that satisfies the privacy authentication integrity and non repudiation principle of security’ he said.

Areas of PKI application
PKI enabled applications, document management system, online line vat returns, registration, e-procurement, import/export community/customs, police, judiciary details, online tax filling, land records, online/mobile banking and education , according to Angaye are some of the areas of application of KPI technology.

“Nigeria cannot be left behind in this emerging scenario especially if we intend to realize the goal of vision 20 2020 which is to be among the top 20 economies in the world by the year 2020 and also with rate of uncontrolled in the use of cyberspace for communication, transaction etc, it has become become imperative to develop a sustainable and secure platform for cyber accessibility, secured transaction and credible identity” he explained.