Saving customers time and money should be the outcome of an
authentication and archiving service delivered by a B.C. government
e-service delivery portal.
BC OnLine will provide access to information products and
services on behalf of government and private sector partners,
including "virtual notary" witnessing, archiving, and electronic
document signing services, to mostly the legal and finance sectors,
according to Jag Gillan, CEO, Datawitness.
Currently, government offices are taking many documents in paper
form and in order to preserve them over a long period of time are
scanning them, digitizing them and then putting them onto
microfilm, he said.
"It starts off in a digital format, goes to paper and then gets
scanned back to digital, and then digital gets transposed onto
microfilm," said Gillan. "What we've done is eliminated all the
middle part -- we've gone from digital to micro-film."
Gillan believes the importance of using microfilm, is that it
can't be altered or manipulated, something of significance in the
event of a contract dispute.
"Because it can't be changed, and it's held by a third party --
the original recipient -- if they got into a dispute, we can always
say we have in addition to digital, an analog copy of all the
communication that went back and forth."
There's also the benefit of cost and time-savings for the
customers of these services, according to Alan Crawshaw, MDA
general manager for BC OnLine.
"There's time that will also be saved in any kind of a dispute
because the information could be called on by either lawyer through
Datawitness, and it can be pulled from the archives very quickly,"
said Crawshaw. "Because Datawitness is a third party, it really
doesn't have an interest in either side other than just showing
what actually took place in the transaction."
As for who uses the Datawitness services, Gillan said it varies,
from clients using it for corporate minutes, to signing contracts
online.
"We really want to demonstrate to the various governmental
agencies here locally, how this service can compliment their
service," he said. "That's where we're putting a lot of our focus
on right now."
Analysts see growth in adjacent market areas like information
life cycle management and content management, said IDC Canada
senior analyst Alison Brooks.
The Government of Canada, through its Secure Channel services,
also offers a number of services, including electronically
post-marked transactions, she said.
"A number of provinces are in discussion with the Federal
Government to maximize use of the Secure Channel infrastructure,"
she said. "Legislation has been passed to enable the federal
government to provide services, and all associated information
technology infrastructure services, to provincial, territorial and
municipal governments."
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