In March 2010 Sintagma UAB, representing a consortium of Sintagma UAB, Affecto Lietuva UAB and Atea UAB, signed the contract with Lithuanian Archives Department for development of Electronic Archive Information System (EAIS). The joint team, having a long-term experience in implementing large and complex projects and high expertise skills in solving tasks related to document management, document archiving processes and electronic signature technologies, will develop a unique not only in Lithuania, but also in Europe information system that will make it possible to submit to the state archives the official electronic documents signed by e-signature, assuring their integrity, authenticity, confidentiality and possibility to use and store them a long or unlimited time.

Most EU countries do not have a clear strategy in respect to electronic documents and their use in exchanging information among the citizens, businesses and authorities. Lithuania distinguishes from other countries by having defined requirements for the documents signed by electronic signature that describe three obligatory parts of electronic document (content, metadata and electronic signatures stored in ZIP format) and having approved specification of electronic document signed by electronic signature ADOC-V1.0.

The European Commission working groups, still solving issues of standardization of electronic signatures and trusted certification services providers, recommend other EU countries to go the way Lithuania goes – as electronic space expands to use official electronic documents signed by qualified electronic signatures that assure reliability and security of electronic documents (thus such documents could be transferred by open channels, e.g. e-mail).

The goal of the project is to create an integral open information system for accepting and storing electronic documents of National Document Fund, providing a legal access to the stored documents using IT and communication means, administering efficiently National Document Fund and providing electronic services.

The possibility to use electronic documents unlimited time is assured by converting their contents into long-term storage files (PDF/A format) and formats for previewing the documents in internet (PNG and JPEG). In the future these formats will be regularly reviewed and updated. E-documents will be physically stored in two geographically remoted electronic archive data centres (one in Vilnius, another in Siauliai). It is planned to implement a backup copying of active data into a reserve data centre and a possibility to switch the system operation when one centre fails.

The project will also cover development of software tools of free accessibility for preparation of official e-documents, signing them by e-signature, preview, verification, accumulation, analysis and processing of statistical data about the stored documents.

Development of electronic documents storage infrastructure and software tools of free accessibility for preparation of official electronic documents, signing them by e-signature, preview and verification should promote using electronic documents. „It is expected that such general use of official electronic documents will allow to save about 39 million LTL per year (comparing with a use of scanned paper copies and evaluating only document scanning costs), but also will provide a lot of other advantages: full reliability of document content, possibility to use fragments of official electronic documents for preparation of other documents, to search in a document text, a quality of electronic documents is better than of  the scanned paper copies“, comments Albertas Sermokas, Sintagma’s General Manager.

„In the goals of the Lithuanian Archive Department it is planned to prepare a legal base for EAIS operation so that the state and municipal institutions, companies could submit to the state archives electronic documents not only of unlimited storage but also of a long storage (11-100 years), so that each organization would not need to care about developing itself an expensive infrastructure “, says Viktoras Domarkas, Deputy General Director of Lithuanian Archives Department

About the project

The 4,3 million LTL project „Development, implementation of electronic archive information system and training services” is financed by EU structural funds by 85%. The project is planned to be finished in August 31, 2011.

Project manager is the Lithuanian Archives Department. The main project contractor Sintagma UAB together with the subcontractor MitSoft UAB develops internal portal functionality of EAIS, also software tools related to creating and checking electronic documents and e-signatures, and is also responsible for project management and coordination of decisions related to EAIS design, development, testing, implementation and training services. Other project partners Affecto Lietuva UAB and Atea UAB develop separate EAIS modules and provide system analysis, specification and documentation services.