CYBERJAYA: The Digital Signature Act 1997, established 20 years ago, must be revisited and improvised to be relevant in current times, said Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Jailani Johari.
He said the act must be studied to ensure its relevancy in today's rapidly growing digital world.
"This is my proposal to regulators of Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), to enable the act to be applicable in current times," he told reporters after the launching of the Pos Digicert and Pos Laju offices in Cyberjaya today.
As a Certification Authority, Pos Digicert which was established in 1998, is responsible for issuing and managing the legally binding certificate and offer various professional online security solutions.
Jailani said around four million people have utilised the Pos Digicert service via the Inland Revenue Board (IRB)'s e-filling services since it was introduced in 2004.
"This shows more people are trusting online transactions and business. And because of that, we need to ensure the service we provide is secure.
"Trust is the major factor in personal and business relationships, but not necessarily in a networked environment. This is where Pos Digicert plays a key role in establishing trust and security ," he added.
He said that as of 2016, some 9.3 million digital certificates have been issued and they are targeting up to 10 million certificates this year.
Meanwhile, Pos Malaysia chairman Tan Sri Dr Mohd Khamil Jamil said the Pos Digicert facilities will further enhance Pos Malaysia's growth trajectory as it will strengthen its offerings to the customers to experience a digital secuirty ecosystem.
The digital certificates is an electronic credential that represents the indentity of individuals, organisations and computers.
"It is used for online authentication, encryption and digital signatures.
"Thus it offers peace of mind as it prevents online security threats and acts as a tool that secure online communication as well as facilitating e-Commerce services," he added.
Earlier, Jailani also launched Pos Malaysia's Pos Mobile Application (Pos Mobile) as an alternative service to enable and help users to perform basic activities with Pos Malaysia.
These activities include tracking of items or parcels, calculate postage rates, search for postcode and also to validate customers' prepaid pack from an iPhone or Android smart phone.