Secure e-Licenses 

Melton Borough Council Issues Secure e-Licenses With GeoTrust’s

Adobe® Certified Document Services

Meets t-government requirements with secure PDF signing solution for 55 different licenses

London UK — 13 February 2006 ^th— GeoTrust Europe, a leader in identity verification solutions for e-business and the UK’s largest issuer of digital certificates for web security, today announced Melton Borough Council is using its Adobe® Certified Document Services (CDS) solution. The Leicestershire based council is using the service to electronically issue tamper-proof licenses and regulatory documents, such as public entertainment licenses, taxi licenses and kennel licenses, to its 48,000 constituents. This enables the council to meet regulatory requirements cost effectively, including the Government Paperwork Elimination Act and the 2002 e-Government Act initiative to make all transactions with the public available electronically.

"We knew we had to find a means to issue licenses online to meet regulatory requirements. The problem was sourcing a solution that could guarantee the security and integrity of the licenses," said Chris Stone, Head of ICT, Melton Borough Council. "The GeoTrust Adobe solution is ideal because unlike other signing solutions it provides an easy means of verifying that a document has not been tampered with by a third party. Whenever a recipient opens one of our PDF licenses the Adobe application will automatically verify the validity of the certificate and display a message to show that it has done so. This provides us with peace of mind that documents can’t be forged or tampered with and readers can easily authenticate licenses."

In addition to meeting Government regulatory requirements the solution will also enable Melton Borough Council to effectively respond to its constituents’ demand for online services. Melton now takes over £1,000 per day from online council tax payments

highlighting the popularity of the Internet as a means to interact with the council. With hundreds of licenses issued per year, including up to 200 taxi licenses, the demand for electronic licenses is expected to be strong.

"Until now there has been a reluctance to make better use of electronic document exchange because of the need to be sure on security," said Paul Tourret, Managing Director, GeoTrust Europe. "We set out to address this with Adobe, to enable organisations to take advantage of reduced costs, faster and smoother interactions with customers and less time consuming paperwork."