In your editorial on technology (TMID 20 March) you pointed out that “Many still want that handshake and a load of papers to take back to the office rather than doing a transaction or deal via a computer which, on the whole, would take less time and trouble” and followed it with a quote from Investments, Industry and IT Minister Austin Gatt saying “if businesses are comfortable to buy online but unsure of selling online, the problem cannot be attributed to skills or knowledge but to culture and confidence”.

In all my dealings with government departments, including the Registry office itself, I have yet to come across any department who will accept a birth or marriage certificate in an electronic format.

Last September, in my dealings with one department of the Registry office located on the third floor, I had to go to the ground floor, queue for 30 minutes and pay 50 cents to get a copy in paper of my birth certificate. So it seems that the government departments themselves do not trust their own systems and suffer from the same problem of “culture and confidence” which Dr Gatt is attributing to Maltese businesses.

Anthony Paris

Attard