Cyber Laws for CxO, an e News letter from Naavi, january 2010

Interview of the Month-2

Mr. Ravi Jagannathan has been the Managing Director & CEO of 3i Infotech Consumer Services Ltd. (Subsidiary of 3i Infotech)since its inception in June 2008.

Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Jagannathan has held several senior-level positions in 3i Infotech, including being the head of the Enterprise Solution Group in the US and being in charge of the Technology Services Group in US and UK, in his capacity as the Senior Vice President of 3i Infotech Inc. Mr. Jagannathan has globe trotted quite extensively and has participated in many Indian and international panel discussions and seminars. He has a global experience of over 20 years in the fields of Management, Finance, Project Management, Technology Consulting and Business Development.

Mr. Jagannathan has also managed the Oracle Technology Practice of UBICS, Inc., US, prior to joining 3i Infotech. Further, in his capacity as a Chartered Accountant and management consultant, he has directed teams of professionals to provide a variety of Business, Management and Technology consulting for many MNC clients including ICICI, Citibank N.A, State Bank of India, HUDCO, Indian Bank, New Century Machinery Ltd., and Procter & Gamble Ltd.

Mr. Jagannathan holds a Bachelor's Degree in Commerce and is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

How do you foresee the growth of digital signature usage by the industry in India?

Today few areas in Government (like Income Tax, MCA 21, IRCTC & eProcurement) use DSC – I see a lot of new applications be it land records management, Other Tax payments etc. use DSC in the near future.

Banking is another area which is expected to adopt DSC immediately especially considering the non-repudiable related benefits.

We are launching new applications like MyLoan, MyInsurance and MyMoney where one could transact using digital signature eliminating the need for physical application forms. Mobile commerce is another area wherein digital signature can play a pivotal role.

What is the potential for digital signatures being used to secure the emerging mobile banking scenario in India?

The potential is quite high. I believe a safe and secure way to enable mobile banking is to deploy PKI based solutions (digital signature).

Ministry of IT and also the RBI heavily recommend financial institutions to adopt PKI technology. In my opinion many people are still not fully aware of the vulnerabilities using non-pki based mobile banking solutions and also about availability of PKI based solutions.

What in your opinion is the reason for the slow adoption of Digital Signature usage in India? What could be the remedies?

There are several factors contributing to slow adoption. I will pick price and lack of applications.

One of the key objectives of 3i CSL is to deliver enough applications for consumer usage while making it more affordable.

In countries which have high penetration of Digital signatures, I see the financial institutions providing the PKI platform for its customers, Indian banking industry along with Government sector can drive quicker adoption.

ITA 2008 provided for new technologies for authentication of electronic documents. Are there any industry initiatives in introducing cost effective alternatives to PKI based digital signature systems?

Considering the provisions made in ITA 2008 – we have recently launched SecMsg, a PKI based secure SMS platform. There are couple of alternatives we have explored for voice based authentication and sim based solutions which has potential.

I am still advocating PKI based authentication as it has all the requisite approvals and provisions in ITA backed by a robust technology.

How does the Indian systems for authentication of electronic documents in the form of the digital signatures and the proposed electronic signatures compare with the developments in other countries?

Lot of countries in Europe, Americas as well as several countries in far-east has very high adoption of Digital signature based authentication. As stated the underlying technology is the same but the applications and usage areas created in the aforesaid countries far outnumber the application/usage in India. Countries like Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong have majority of their population using digital signatures for conducting banking transactions or stock trading. India being one of the fastest growing economies will soon adopt a similar route which will provide better banking and e-governance environment.

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