NCBF Introduction
The Electronic Signature Business Plan is the second phase of a four phase process required by the NMFS procedural directive for e-signatures to allow NMFS applications to use electronic signatures. This phase is designed to explain why an electronic signature for a transaction is beneficial and "practicable", both to NMFS and its end users. The business plan also discusses the current process that will be replaced by the e-government application, the demand for electronic signatures in for the application, how NPS plans to implement electronic signatures in this context, the various costs and benefits, and an implementation plan outline. The remaining two phases in implementing electronic signatures required by the procedural directive are:
- Evaluation and Approval of the Business Plan, and
- Implementation of the Electronic Signature Process.
Recent regulations   have made changes to the Fishery Management Plan for the Bottomfish and Seamount Groundfish Fisheries of the Western Pacific Region. In particular, non-commercial fishers must apply for a permit and record their catch daily in a logbook and report logbook entries to NMFS within 72 hours of the completion of each fishing trip. OMB approved the information collection for the permitand reporting process effective August 18, 2008. The permit and reporting requirements took effect on September 1, 2008, when the fishery reopened for the season.
The Hawaii Non-commercial Bottomfish Logbook is a web based system designed to facilitate reporting by recreational and subsistence fishers in this fishery. This web-based application will obviate the need for fishers to send in paper logbook pages at the completion of fishing trips. Moving to an electronic system for the collection of these logbook data has many beneficial and practicable benefits in the form of increased efficiency, accessibility, and reliability over the current paper process. (Need more on system background).