New national project launched under NIDS

A NEW National Public Key Infrastructure (NPKI) project has been launched by the Government under the National Identification System programme.

The launch took place on Wednesday at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston.

The NPKI project will be rolled out during the next seven months, with the objective of making Jamaica a more digital society in which there is ubiquitous use of information and information and communications technology (ICT) in all spheres, such as home, work, school and recreation.

This project will enable trusted electronic identities for people, services and things, and make it possible to implement strong authentication, data encryption and digital signatures, based on a certifying authority.

NUMEROUS BENEFITS

Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Fayval Williams said the NPKI project will have numerous benefits to Jamaicans, based on the Government’s legislative plans for a digital society.

“The National Public Key Infrastructure is one of the pillars of the ICT platform that will enable us to be able to use secured [original] signatures online to do business,” Williams said.

She noted that the new system will ensure that Jamaicans authenticate themselves online, which will reduce time and travel and guarantee that messages coming from an individual, or documents sent electronically, arereally coming from whom he or she claims to be.

“That is where increased productivity will come in, because instead of taking two days to go to the United States of America and back to sign one document, you can sign it here and do other things that you need to do,” she said.