The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced the launch of the first mGovernment lab in the region aimed at verifying the quality and security of mGovernment applications.

The lab will also test whether applications submitted comply with international standards and best practice, said a TRA statement.

It will boast of advanced operating systems designed specifically to testing smart applications. All the required software is in place and the specialist have already started testing operations for a variety of UAE government entities.

Once completed, the lab will provide full security screening, load testing for applications and accounts for the government entities who wish to verify their applications remotely, it stated.

"The mGovernment Lab is an innovative and unique regional project that ultimately, reinforces the UAE’s leadership the field of mGovernment. The importance of this lab lies in protecting both the users and government entities from security threats that might arise from unauthorized applications,” remarked Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, the mGovernment initiative director.

“This technical center, developed by the TRA, will be available to everybody. It is with great pride that we are at the heart of the provision of such a service given the importance of it to our colleagues in government entities. The launch of this lab certainly puts us one step closer to achieving the goals set out in the UAE mGovernment initiative,” he added.

Meshal Bin Hussain, aeCERT operations manager at the TRA said: "The Lab is an integrated environment that enables the assessment of submitted government applications, both in terms of effectiveness and reliability. We encourage all government entities and institutions to send the applications they are developing in order to guarantee the quality of the program meets the highest of industry standards.”

"This lab serves as a cloud service we provide to government entities, universities, and all concerned parties. We will receive applications developed by these entities and perform an automatic testing and if these applications passed these tests, they will undergo the manual testing process to assess its strength taking into account the ease of use, security and many other important functions," noted Bin Hussain.

"In the near future, we will hold special workshops for government entities to further introduce them to the lab and its features and mechanisms," he added.-TradeArabia News Service