Months before the May 2022 elections, more than 681,000 personnel of the Department of Education (DepEd) have submitted their applications for the Philippine National Public Key Infrastructure (PNPKI).
Undersecretary for Administration Alain Del B. Pascua, in a statement issued Thursday, Jan. 27, said that around 681,283 teaching and non-teaching personnel have already submitted their application for digital signature based on the data on DepEd Learning Management System (LMS). This data is as of Jan. 19, 2021.
Teachers and personnel were urged to sign up for the PNPKI by registering through DepEd LMS in preparation for the upcoming 2022 elections.
The PNPKI digital signature, DepEd explained, is a new requirement by the Commission of Elections (Comelec) for all public school teachers who will serve as Electoral Board Members.
Available to all government employees, agencies, and private individuals, DepEd said that the PNPKI is a “virtual key that lets its users encrypt or conceal data into a code and embed important transactions like email exchange to protect it from hackers.”
DepEd said that the PNPKI key or certificate can be obtained by applying. These, the agency explained, are “very small files” recommended by the Department of Information and Communications (DICT) to be stored in a USB flash disk.
This, DepEd explained, can be downloaded to a computer and “activated in certain applications or transactions where security is the highest priority.”
In 2021, DepE -- in partnership with DICT --- was able to fast-track the registration of teachers and personnel with the DepEd LMS as the online platform.
The partnership also DepEd to file applications for the digital certificates in bulk and for the DICT to waive the submission of requirements.