According to a study by CCID Consulting, a market research and management consultancy firm, the quantity of electronic authentication certificates in China will grow from 4.7 million in 2006 to 17.56 million in 2011, and the annual rate of growth will be above 27 percent.

With the increase in online transactions and the sustainable growth of China's "netizens," China's electronic authentication service industry is expected to grow rapidly in the next 3-5 years and make a bigger contribution to the information economy. Here are the figures for the long term (the next five years) according to CCID Consulting:

·         China's electronic authentication service market will grow from 1.64 billion Yuan in 2006 to 6.49 billion Yuan in 2011 and the annual growth rate would be above 28%.

·         Of total electronic authentication certificates, the quantity of personal digital certificates issued will increase from 1.2 million in 2006 to 6.3 million in 2011, more than 30% of the gross certificate market.

·         The business scale of the digital certificate market will reach 3.37 billion Yuan and that of the personal digital certificate market scale should reach 560 million by 2011.

The implications for the near term? Electronic authentication applications will create breakthroughs in the following areas, providing more efficiency and greater security: online taxation, online banking, online office systems, electronic customs declaration, purchasing by invitation to tender, electronic contracts, wireless network and VPN, server authentication, software and book authentication.

Some authentication technology providers are already in on the ground floor.

·         In mid-2007, Aladdin Knowledge Systems, a leader in DRM Software, USB-based authentication and secure Web gateways, announced, that Beijing-based Hanwang Technology Co. Ltd., the largest provider of intelligent recognition solutions in China, will deploy up to 18,000 Aladdin HASP software protection keys to secure Hanwang products (such as its latest Writing Tablet solutions that enable users to quickly and easily input Chinese and Japanese handwriting into more than 100 software applications) against piracy and unauthorized use.

·         In July 2007, Thales announced that Wing Lung Bank, one of the oldest and most established Chinese banks in Hong Kong, has deployed Thales's SafeSign to enable token-based two-factor authentication for its retail e-banking customers. As one of the first local banks in Hong Kong to deploy token-based two-factor authentication, Wing Lung Bank now meets the Hong Kong Monetary Authority directive which states that single-factor authentication for high-risk transactions is no longer adequate in the face of rising online security threats. Thales's SafeSign solution was selected by Wing Lung Bank due to its scalability, flexibility and ease of integration with Wing Lung Bank's existing e-banking system.  In addition to SafeSign's ability to support the use of hardware tokens - Wing Lung Bank's current authentication tool - the security solution can easily support other forms of authentication which might be used in the future such as smart cards, SMS and e-certificates.

·         Just this January, Bioscrypt Inc., a leading provider of enterprise access control technology, announced that The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel is using Bioscrypt’s VisionAccess 3D Face Readers to authenticate 12,000 employees and Bioscrypt’s V-Smart fingerprint readers to control access to restricted areas. Because of the speed at which the 3D face readers authenticate employees even at peak hours, The Venetian Macao, the world’s largest casino, has deployed 13 VisionAccess 3D Face Readers in order to authenticate 12,000 employees at the front entrance when a new shift starts. Bioscrypt’s 3D face reader is a hands-free biometric solution that authenticates users in under a second by matching the structure of the person’s face against their enrolled template. The VisionAccess readers function by shining a near-invisible infrared light grid pattern on a user’s face. A camera then takes a picture of the resulting distortions in the grid pattern and makes a match against a template. Turnstiles ensure that only one employee enters at a time, eliminating tailgating.

While China's electronic authentication service industry may have started late, software products mainly depend on foreign manufacturers, and the domestic manufacturers are somewhat competitive on system integration, the future is bright. It is forecasted that the market scale of electronic authentication software would grow from 710 million Yuan in 2006 to 3.12 billion Yuan in 2011 and the annual rate of growth is above 25%.

With the continuing growth of e-commerce and e-government, the electronic authentication service demand in China will surely reach boom level – a development that bodes well for a country still struggling with brand protection and intellectual property woes.