Illinois was exploring new territory when it launched its public-key infrastructure program at the turn of the century. But it took an economic recession — and a statewide, belt-tightening information technology consolidation — to finally push PKI into use.

“In Illinois, the benefits of enabling digital signatures were recognized and proselytized in the late 1990s,” said the state’s acting chief information officer, Doug Kasamis. A contract was signed with Entrust in 2000 and the system was in production by 2001. But by 2005, only 7,000 certificates had been issued. “It didn’t really make a good business case four years into it,” Kasamis said.

Slowly but surely, however, state businesses and organizations are starting to use PKI, now that a standard infrastructure is in place. Illinois now has about 110,000 certificates in use and is issuing new ones at a rate of about 2,000 a month.

See the complete article in  Government Computer News.