Decree Law 509/69 created the Brazilian Post Office and Telegraph Company (Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos (ECT)), which provides postal services throughout Brazil.
ECT intends to branch out into electronic commerce and published Notice with Invitation to Bid 003/2002 in order to contract an integrated solution for digital certification services.
The Post Office Certification Authority will be responsible for issuing, revoking, managing, securing, storing and publishing digital certificates, as well as generating and maintaining revoked digital certificate lists, in addition to other specific administrative tasks. These services will be operated and managed by the winning bidder in compliance with the performance and availability levels set by ECT. The winning bidder must also conform with ICP-Brasil's regulations. The Root Certification Authority of ICP-Brasil will oversee the new certification authority. AC-Correios will be operating with eight classes of digital certificates.
The Digital Certification structure that ECT intends to organize is composed of:
- the certification authority;
- registration authority;
- administration and management of the certification authority and management environment (Gestão).
What makes this invitation to bid interesting is the number of ECT network branches, which guarantee its presence in all the 5,500 municipalities of the Brazilian territory.
Prior to the submission of proposals, interested parties were required to attend ECT's Brasília headquarters in order to become acquainted with its production environment. Bidders were also required to prove that they could issue satisfactorily the type of certificate that will be adopted by the ECT.
Consortia were not permitted to take part in the invitation to bid.
The submission of proposals took place at ECT's headquarters at 9:30am on March 4 2002 where the bidders' proposals and documents were analyzed.
The winning bidder must take responsibility for any adaptations to the Post Office's micro-computers that become necessary following the installation of equipment supplied by it. The specifications of the equipment and services to be supplied were outlined in the annexes.
Those not registered were able to participate in the invitation to bid, as were bidders previously registered in the ECT Supplier and Service Provider Database (who were not required to present documents relating to the company’s regularity).
This invitation to bid is governed by:
- Law 8,666/93;
- The Notice on Invitation to Bid posted on the ECT website at www.correios.com.br; and
- the Invitation to Bid and Contracting Manual/ECT.
Initially, the new certification authority's activities will be conducted in just 100 post office branches, the addresses of which are listed in Annex 13.
The total implementation period of the project is 60 days and the respective implementation timetable is laid down in Annex 4 of the notice.
For further information on this topic please contact Ricardo Barretto or Eduardo Carvalhaes at Barretto Ferreira, Kujawski, Brancher e Gonçalves – Sociedade de Advogados by telephone (+55 11 3066 5999) or by fax (+55 11 3167 4735) or by email ([email protected] or [email protected]).