“ANTIC Seeks To Guarantee The Integrity, Authenticity Of Official Documents”

ANTIC recently launched a digital signature scheme to better secure administrative documents. What is the initiative all about?
The initiative undertaken by ANTIC to secure administrative documents in the digital era is in line with government’s lofty ambition to meet some digital economy targets as Cameroon strives to become an upper middle-income economy by the 2035 threshold. While the advent of digital economy has prompted the digitalization of services and processes giving rise to a sort of paperless administration, with benefits in terms of improved productivity, enhance performance, efficiency, transparency and accountability, the increasing availability and accessibility of ICT devices such as computers, scanners, smartphones and printers have greatly fostered the generation, use and dissemination of fake official documents. These fake documents are largely distributed on social media with the intention of discrediting government institutions, manipulating and misleading public opinion. In a bid to address and tackle this increasingly disturbing trend, ANTIC has developed a digital signature scheme dubbed Doc@uthANTIC that seeks to curb the generation of fake official documents as well as ease their verification process.

How does Doc@authANTIC function with regard to rendering official documents authentic and free from falsification?
This digital signature scheme dubbed Doc@uthANTIC provides institutions with a digital platform that helps secure the production process of official documents they issue as well as certify the authenticity of these documents.  The modus operadi of Doc@uthANTIC is twofold notably: Firstly, it ensures the integrity of hard and soft copies of documents by affixing forgery proof elements on the documents during the signing process and encapsulating the generated signature in a QR code. Secondly, it verifies the authenticity of the signed documents by scanning the QR code with an Android phone via the Doc@uthANTIC mobile application which can be downloaded free of charge on Google Play Store. It is worth recalling that a digital signature which is fraud-proof provides the same legal commitment as a conventional handwritten signature, as per the provisions of article 17 of the December 21, 2010 Law relating to Cybersecurity and Cybercrime in Cameroon.  As such, thanks to this solution, ANTIC seeks to guarantee the integrity and authenticity of official documents, combat document forgery and counterfeiting, ease the authentication process and boost user satisfaction.

Who can use the Doc@uthANTIC solution?
In essence, Doc@uthANTIC can be used by private companies, government agencies, universities and the likes of national examination boards to ove...