Hyderabad, June, 27, 2005 (Business Line)

Banks, financial institutions, and Government's introducing e-governance, can very soon, feel more comfortable about their electronic transactions, thanks to a new secrecy system developed by an Indian consortium.

The Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS), headquartered in Chennai, has demonstrated a secrecy system, which ensures that two-way communication of sensitive, confidential and privileged data and multimedia information can be carried out securely.

The Hyderabad-based, Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), will be ready to deploy the system for commercial application to the users.

"We are already in discussions with a few nationalised banks to demonstrate the utility of the system," said Dr M.S. Vijayaraghavan, Secretary and Executive Director of SETS.

The President of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, handed over the design document of the system to the Chairman and Managing Director of ECIL, G.P. Srivastava, in New Delhi on June 22

The secure communication system SS-v3 is used for transmission of data and voice over public networks in a highly confidential and secure manner at a speed of two Mbps or higher.

It is targeted for use in multiple applications including inter-bank transactions, large electronic data exchange, e-learning and e-governance.

Secrecy systems have been the exclusive preserve of the defence sector and to an extent the Home Ministry. The development of this SS-v3 version by SETS, marks the beginning of the availability of such highly secure features to be accessible to the commercial users in the country, Dr Vijayaraghavan told Business Line.

The RBI, for example, can send special instructions to all other banks through such secure system. Similarly, commercially sensitive data or sensitive Government information can be communicated securely over point-to-point links, he added.

SETS is already working on a similar secure, but next generation, point to multipoint broadcast system (which can transmit data from a single point to several geographical locations, especially useful for geographically diversified organisations).