MANILA, Philippines--The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) has secured a $2.3-million grant from South Korea to help establish a national public key infrastructure (PKI) standards body in the Philippines.

This PKI body will be responsible for issuing digital signatures (or digital certificates) for individual and business users transacting with government-run websites.

The grant was from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The project is being jointly undertaken by the CICT and Department of Trade and Industry.

Although local service providers do offer PKI services for electronic commerce websites, the technology's use is not widespread.

"The goal is encourage e-commerce further and enable users to feel more secure about transacting online," said Tess Roberto, CICT-NCC (National Computer Center) director for consulting and services.

An inter-agency task force composed of representatives from several agencies such as the National Statistics Office and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has been formed to help establish a PKI body, Roberto said in an interview with INQUIRER.net.

"After brainstorming, we will be able to come up with details on what structure or framework we will follow in creating a national PKI body," she said.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Roberto added, has volunteered to become the pilot agency to adopt digital signatures to help reduce redundant applications for tax identification numbers.

Roberto noted governments in neighboring countries like Thailand have started efforts to adopt PKI. "This enables more security for country-to-country trade. If we do not start adopting now, other countries won't be so trusting with the Philippines when it comes to e-commerce," she said.