LONG DISTANCES TO CHECK TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS

Residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who decide to activate the digital signature service at the Agency for Identification Documents, Records, and Data Exchange (IDDEEA) to check for traffic fines online need a significant amount of time and patience to complete the process.

PHOTO: Pixabay

Since mid-January, BiH residents can only check their fines through the Remote Digital Signing application, but only after personally registering at one of the IDDEEA offices in five cities across the country. One resident of Prijedor shared his frustrating experience with "Glas Srpske" after the previous option of checking fines using identification document data was discontinued.

"I decided to activate the digital signature service because I believed it would simplify procedures, allowing me to sign documents electronically and send them via email to the municipality, electricity, or telecom providers," he said.

He added that although the registration process at the IDDEEA office in Banja Luka was quick, problems arose when he tried to activate the service at home.

"Despite my good IT literacy and following the instructions from IDDEEA’s website, I encountered registration issues. After several phone consultations with their staff, I gained access to check fines and sign documents. However, the issue is that institutions requiring digitally signed documents must also have access to IDDEEA’s system to retrieve them. As I understand, not all institutions have joined this service yet, making my effort useless," he explained.

Currently, qualified electronic signatures can be obtained at registration offices in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar, Bijeljina, and Bihać. IDDEEA assures that more cities will have such offices in the future.

"We are in the process of signing agreements and obtaining international certification with certain police departments and banks in BiH," IDDEEA officials stated.

They emphasized that the entire process, including physical identification, document verification, contract signing, and receiving access credentials for the Digital Representation platform, takes only three to five minutes.

"After receiving the necessary parameters, access to the platform is enabled via the qualified electronic signature application for remote signing. The entire process is free and provides access to all e-services currently offered by IDDEEA, as well as future electronic services from other institutions," the agency stated, adding that since July 1 last year, thousands of requests have been received.

Citizens, however, question why the process cannot be completed online instead of requiring long-distance travel.

"It’s absurd that every citizen from the region has to travel to Banja Luka just to retrieve access credentials. If everyone wanted to use this service, thousands of people from Prijedor alone would need to travel there. In my opinion, this should be available at a more local level, through an institution in the place of residence," frustrated residents argue.