5 Conclusions Drawn

5.1 International Experiences

40. The following conclusions are drawn from the International experiences:

• The technology is very complicated, technical and expensive (Germany, US)

• Business cases are uncertain - where there are no enabled applications, there are no motivated users

• Citizen uptake will be significantly less than forecast (Hong Kong, Finland, Germany)

• Subsidisation (of cards or readers) doesn't motivate users (Hong Kong, Finland, Germany)

• PKI uptake is greatest when governments have regulated users to adopt it (Hong Kong, Australia) or used it internally (US)

• The full cost of a PKI system is greater than originally anticipated because associated costs are not taken into account (US)

• The commercial supply of certificates is not stable (Germany, UK, NZ)

• The full cost of a PKI system is never retrospectively calculated (all)

• Vendors do not implement PKI technology correctly and Governments do not test the technology sufficiently (Microsoft et al)

5.2 New Zealand Experiences

41. The following conclusions are drawn from the New Zealand experiences:

• The technology is very complicated, technical and expensive

• The full cost of a PKI system is never retrospectively calculated

• Auto-update service or security packs can break your PKI application (Microsoft)

• The technical skills of some of your users will be much less than you expect

• The helpdesk support cost during implementation will be higher than you expect

• End-user security will hamper implementation

• The withdrawal of a commercial CA service can threaten the entire project

• The availability, quality and performance of a CA's services (registration, CRL, renewal) may not always be as good as originally planned