In  fact,  Governments  have  been  cautious  in  terms  of  their
preferred  eGovernment  approaches  and  strategies.  A  large
number of Governments’ services are still provided over the counter  and  requires  the  physical  presence  of  citizens.  This is  in  principle  due  to  the  fact  that  existing  eGovernment environments lack effective methods through which they can establish trust and avail services over digital networks.

This  article  discusses  the  need  for  trust  establishment  to advance  eGovernment  in  light  of  the  existing  and  emerging realities. It looks at the evolving forms of identities, namely digital  identities  and  the  role  of  PKI  technology  in  enabling such requirements.

The key contribution of this article is that it provides an overview of a large scale national PKI program which was deployed as part  of  a  government  identity  management  infrastructure development scheme in the United Arab Emirates. It provides an  insight  into  the  architecture  and  features  of  the  PKI deployment.  It  presents  how  the  UAE  government  planned
and set up a national identity validation gateway to support both online and traditional transactions. It also includes some reflections  on  key  management  considerations  and  attempts to  make  reference  to  some  European  initiatives  to  highlight similarities and differences with the UAE and GCC projects.