National e-ID for the citizens of the Philippines

In 2012, the Philippine International Trading Corporation launched a tender for a project to implement special certificates. These certificates were to be used to electronically identify citizens and government personnel when accessing governmental services.

The solution that was needed was more than PrimeKey could deliver by itself, so a consortium was created with PrimeKey, SecureMetric and Asertia. As usual, the timescale for the project was short, just ten weeks. PrimeKey was the main contractor and responsible for the deliverables. This was a new role for PrimeKey, which had never worked with these sub-contractors or their products before.

Lars Bågnert, VP, CISSP and Manager for Operations & Services at PrimeKey Solutions, and his team were in charge at PrimeKey.

“Edward Law, the CEO of SecureMetric, one of our future sub-contractors, contacted me after carrying out some initial work on the project. PrimeKey was the only company that had previous experience of such a major (i.e. governmental) implementation, which is why I was chosen as the project manager.”

“As project manager and coordinator I developed the policies and procedures. One of my colleagues from PrimeKey was responsible for the technical implementation, testing, deliverables and the quality of the project.”

“The demands on the solution were high, both in terms of technical performance and complexity. It turned into one of our biggest challenges, particularly as the customer knew exactly what they needed and had skilled personnel who could check all the deliverables, including the quality.”

“We managed to establish a good working relationship, both within the project and with the customer. The commitment from the project team as well as the customer and their representatives was one of the key factors for the success of this project, despite many obstacles, including broken down hardware.”

“The solution had to be based on iGovPhils, an e-ID solution for the Philippines hosted by the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI). It was the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) that launched the tender for the ”Supply, Installation and Configuration of Licensed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Software, Service and Support’. The solution was implemented at the National Computer Centre (NCC) in Manila.”

”The tender included a wide range of functions such as certificate issuance, certificate life cycle management, electronic signatures, time stamp services and all the necessary procedures and policies. All of the services had to be implemented in accordance with existing legislation and best practice.”

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