By Bernice Camille V. Bauzon, Reporter
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday officially turned over the review of the source code that will be used in the 2010 automated polls to an internationally accredited US-based company. Comelec Chairman Jose Melo in a press conference said the source code would be open for review of the public, including political parties, only after its accreditation.“After SysTest submits its report, it [source code] will be open for review of other interested parties . . . under a controlled environment, of course,” Melo told reporters, adding that both the poll body and SysTest are open to criticisms from the public.
SysTest Labs is an internationally accredited information technology (IT) company that performs software- and program-testing for different agencies in the United States.
The Colorado-based company has been working with the poll body and its automation partner, the joint venture of Smartmatic and Total Information Management (TIM), to finalize the details of the source code review, Mark Phillips, SysTest vice president, said.
He added that the source code will undergo rigid “functional and security” tests to ensure that it is tamper-proof.
“We are already preparing to receive the source code from Smartmatic in several tranches,” Phillips told reporters, adding that the review of the source code is just a preliminary step to the crucial testings it will have to undergo.
The source code that will be used for the 2010 automated polls is being leased to Smartmatic-TIM by Dominion, a Canadian-owned company. The joint venture of Smartmatic-TIM was able to acquire an exclusive license for the Philippines to use Dominion’s source code.
A source code consists of a programming language created by a programmer to create or improve a certain software. In the country’s automated elections, the code will be used to improve and customize the software that is needed to transmit and count the ballots that would be casted in the 2010 polls.
Under the law, the source code must be reviewed by an internationally accredited IT firm.
Phillips also said that his company is confident it can comply with the deadline set by the poll body. “Our timeframe is February 6, [by then], our report will be finished.”
The February 6 deadline is in time for the law-mandated provision that requires the international certificate for the source code three months before Election Day.
Bernice Camille V. Bauzon
Source: http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/nation/3924-election-source-code-turned-over-to-us-based-it-testing-laboratory
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