BALTIMORE TECHNOLOGIES PROVIDES ULTIMATE POINT OF TRUST TO DUTCH GOVERNMENT

Baltimore Technologies and PinkRoccade provide high trust framework for secure communications with the Dutch Government

Amsterdam, 18 December 2002: Baltimore Technologies (PRWEB) December 20, 2002 -security, today announced that it has been chosen by PinkRoccade to supply Baltimore UniCERT as the digital certificate management system for the Dutch National Root Certificate Authority. Baltimore UniCERT will provide the digital certificates to secure the recently announced Dutch eGovernment initiative. PinkRoccade won the contract to establish the National Root Certificate Authority, which will be run and hosted at their secure hosting site, and have selected Baltimore Technologies to supply the underlying PKI security technology.

The Dutch eGovernment initiative -- PKI Overheid -- establishes a high trust communications framework for secure government to government, government to business and government to citizen communications. The Dutch Government has commissioned a National Root Certificate Authority infrastructure that will be the central trust point for all digital certificates issued under the Dutch Root for use in transactions with the Government. The trust infrastructure, based on Baltimore UniCERT, is composed of a National Root and a Domain Root Certificate Authority for each of the three communication groups. It will enable users to be strongly authenticated to government systems and to apply digital signatures to documents and transactions, guaranteeing authentication and non-repudiation. Users will be issued with smartcards which include the digital certificates to enable them to conduct business electronically with the Government.

"We evaluated a number of PKI vendors' products and chose Baltimore, not only for the obvious strength of their UniCERT technology, but also as a partner on whose expertise and commitment to PKI within the global government sector we could rely to deliver this critical project," commented Henk Hendriks, Managing Director of PinkRoccade Trusted eBusiness Services, a division of PinkRoccade Infrastructure Services.

"We are particularly pleased to be working with PinkRoccade for the Dutch Government on this strategically important project," added Patrick Jourdas, Senior Vice President EMEA of Baltimore Technologies plc. It reinforces our corporate vision that authentication and digital signing are vital services that will be needed to secure high value or personal transactions with governments"

PinkRoccade chose Baltimore for this contract because of its leading position within the global government sector. Baltimore has provided secure services such as e-tax, e-identity, e-police and secure communications for government organisations including Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Finance, Italy, Ministry of Defence, UK, Norwegian Defence, Irish Revenue, and the Government of Valencia, Spain.

About Baltimore Technologies
Baltimore Technologies products, services and solutions address the fundamental security needs of e-business in distributed environments. Baltimores e-security technology enables companies to verify the identity of electronic counterparties and securely manages which resources and information users can access through open networks. Many of the worlds leading organisations in Finance and Government have deployed Baltimores e-security technology to enable e-business over fixed and wireless networks. Baltimore also offers worldwide support for its authorization management and public key-based authentication products.

Baltimores products, services and solutions are sold directly as well as through its worldwide partner network, Baltimore TrustedWorld. Baltimore Technologies is a public company, listed on the London Stock Exchange (BLM). For more information on Baltimore Technologies, please visit http://www.baltimore.com

Media Contacts:
Irene Dehaene                
Baltimore Technologies             Sarah Scales
Tel:    +353 1 881 6407             Brands2Life
Mobile: +353 87 292 3333             Tel:   +44 20 7386 6200
irene.dehaene@baltimore.com          sarah.scales@brands2life.com

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Certain statements that are not historical facts including certain statements made over the course of this document may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance and achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements implied by such forward-looking statements.