Signatures
In addition to defining clearly the prerequisites and safety guidelines, the new German signature law of May 2001 has also created the prerequisite enabling special types of electronic signatures to be treated as equal to handwritten signatures. This means that electronic documents receive legal relevance through an electronic signature and/or time stamp and can be used as evidence in a court case.
There are basically two different types of signatures. On one hand, personal signatures that prove who created what content or change and, on the other hand, time stamps that prove what point in time which content was present (or change made).
The law also defined differing security levels that are of decisive importance when judging the security (and legal liability).
According to the signature law, legal force (i.e., replacing the "paper signature") and maximum security can only be achieved by the security level "qualified signature with provider accreditation". Qualified here means that very safe and tested technologies (i.e., Smartcards) have been used where necessary. "Provider accreditation" means here that the technology used was supplied by a provider (company), that has been verified by the Federal Network Agency (www.BNetzA.de) for maintaining the safety guidelines as outlined in the signature law. These providers receive an applicable certificate and seal, which must be shown on request.
The new German signature law is integrated in the European Signature Guidelines dated November 1999, in which a uniform standard and regulations have been stipulated for all European member States. These European Signature Guidelines are, in accordance with the European guideline experts, to be converted to applicable National laws. Presently, many European States have already implemented these guidelines; however, a few have not yet done so.
Other countries, such as the USA for example, have significantly less exactly formulated signature laws or only have guidelines that basically allow the use of them. Calculable (legal) security, as outlined in the German signature law, is practically non-existent. To remedy this, AuthentiDate has begun a project that will create a trusted signature platform in the USA with the United States Postal Service (USPS), the world's largest national postal organization, and Microsoft Corporation.
Please contact us if you have any questions regarding possible use scenarios or the international effect of signatures. We will be pleased to help.
