Goodbye Public Certificate... Starting Tomorrow, the 'Certificate' Era of Contention Begins

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] The public certification, which caused inconvenience due to complicated procedures, will disappear into history after 21 years.

The government announced on the 9th that with the enforcement of the revised Electronic Signature Act from the 10th, the public certification will become one of the private certifications. Accordingly, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Financial Services Commission plan to promote the development of convenient and secure private electronic signature services and strengthen cooperation to expand the adoption of private electronic signature services in public and financial sectors.

After checking the electronic signatures currently used on 500 websites in the public and financial sectors that previously used public certification, it was found that in addition to the existing public certification, about seven private electronic signatures with simple registration and issuance procedures, convenient authentication methods such as PIN, biometric, and pattern, and easy certificate storage and use were gradually being introduced.

Starting with Kakao Pay in June 2017, BankSign (Korea Federation of Banks), Toss (Viva Republica), PASS (PASS - three telecom companies), Naver, KB Star Banking (KB Kookmin Bank), and Payco (NHN Payco) were launched. Unlike the public certification, which was inconvenient to use and store and was treated as a burden by users, these private certifications are praised for their simple procedures and easy accessibility.

Furthermore, it has been confirmed that existing public certification authorities are improving electronic signature services by releasing browser certificates and cloud certificates to enhance user convenience. These allow certificates to be issued on the cloud without installing ActiveX or security programs, enabling easy use anytime and anywhere.

With the rapid spread of various types of private certificate issuance, as of the end of last month, the number of private electronic signature service subscribers (66.46 million) has exceeded that of public electronic signature service subscribers (46.76 million).

The government expects that with the activation of competition in the electronic signature market, new electronic signature services applying various new technologies such as blockchain and biometrics will be actively developed and used.

Additionally, the government plans to strengthen cooperation so that private electronic signatures are promptly introduced in public institutions and financial institutions, allowing citizens to use them conveniently.

First, in the public sector, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety is promoting the introduction of private electronic signatures. In particular, to allow citizens to experience the changes from the revision of the Electronic Signature Act early, from January next year, private electronic signatures will be applied to major public websites such as the simplified year-end tax settlement service on Hometax (National Tax Service), issuance service of resident registration certificates for year-end tax settlement on Government24 (Ministry of the Interior and Safety), and the People’s Petition system (Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission).

To this end, in September, a pilot project for expanding electronic signature adoption in the public sector was launched, selecting five candidate operators: Kakao (Kakao Authentication), KB Kookmin Bank (KB Star Banking), NHN Payco (Payco), Korea Information Certificate Authority (Samsung PASS), and the three telecom companies (PASS).

In the financial sector, plans are underway to revise the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. While ensuring that various and convenient private electronic signature (authentication) technologies are applied in the financial sector according to the principle of technological neutrality, considering the characteristics of the financial sector where citizens’ assets are transacted online such as account transfers, the government intends to secure security by introducing strengthened authentication methods for high-risk transactions.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "When various private electronic signature services emerge, we plan to operate an electronic signature evaluation and recognition system so that citizens can judge which electronic signatures are trustworthy and secure," adding, "We will do our best to create an environment where safe and convenient electronic signature services can be used."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.