eSignature Standard Made Easy

Compliant signatory

a qualified electronic signature is an electronic signature that is compliant to EU regulation no 910 slash 2014 I does regulation for electronic transactions within the internal European market it enables to verify the authorship of a declaration in electronic data exchange over long periods of time qualified electronic signatures can be considered as digital equivalent to handwritten signatures the purpose of itis was to create a set of standards to ensure that electronic signatures could be used in a secure manner while conducting business online or while conducting official business across borders between EU Member States the qualified electronic signature is one such standard that has been outlined under itis a qualified electronic signature is an advanced electronic signature with a qualified digital certificate that has been created by a qualified signature creation device QSC d4 an electronic signature to be considered as a qualified electronic signature it must meet three main requirements first the signatory must be linked and uniquely identified to the signature the second point is that data used to create the signature must be under the sole control of the signatory and last it must have the ability to identify if the data that accompanies the signature has been tampered with since the signing of the message it is important to note that creating a qualified electronic signature is more than merely adding a qualified certificate to an advanced electronic signature the signature must also be created using a qualified signature creation device QSC D this device is responsible for qualifying digital signatures by using specific hardware and software that ensures that the signatory only has control of their private key in a addition a qualified trust service provider manages the signature creation data that is produced the signature creation data must remains unique confidential and protected from forgery qualified electronic signatures that comply with itis maybe technically implemented through three specific digital signature standards Ed's Paves and Kane's that were developed by the European telecommunications standards Institute Etsy and then need to be complemented with a qualified digital certificate through the procedures described earlier the qualified trust service provider has a crucial role in the process of qualified electronic signing a trust service provider must receive qualified status from a supervisory governmental body that allows the entity to provide qualified trust services to be used in creating qualified electronic signatures regulated in itis the European Union published an EU trust list with constitutive effect meaning that a provider or service will only be qualified if it appears in the trusted list qualified trust service providers are required to abide by the strict guidelines outlined under the itis regulation which include as part of the certificate creation process the service provider must provide a valid time and date for created certificates signatures that have expired certificates must be revoked immediately personnel employed by the qualified trust service provider must be appropriately trained software and hardware used by the service provider must be trustworthy and capable of preventing certificate forgery under itis the intent of the implementation of qualified electronic signatures is to serve several purposes such as the facilitation of business and public services processes including those that go across borders these processes can be safely expedited using electronic signing under itis EU Member States have been charged with establishing points of single contact PSCs for trust services to ensure that electronic ID schemes may be used in cross-border public sector actions such as exchanging and accessing healthcare information across borders previously a signatory would sign a document or message and then return it to the intended recipient via the postal service facsimile service by hand or by scanning and then attaching it to an email the issue with these methods is that they are not always secure or timely delays and delivery could occur and there exists the possibility that signatures could be forged or the enclosed documents may be altered the risk increases as multiple signatures are required from different people who may be located in different locations these problems are alleviated by using qualified electronic signatures which save time are legally binding and provide a higher level of technical security the increased transparency in the electronic signing and transaction process and the enhanced interoperability are expected to spur innovation in the European internal market Aida's requires that no electronic signature should be denied legal effect or admissibility as evidence solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the requirements for qualified electronic signatures the qualified electronic signature shall have the equivalent legal effect as a hundred and signature it's evidentiary value depends on the circumstances but will normally be considered very high all EU member states are required to recognize a qualified electronic signature is valid as long as it has been created with a qualified certificate that has been issued by another member state under itis regulation article 27 electronic signatures in public services member states are prohibited from requesting signatures of a higher level than qualified electronic signature article 24 to of Ida's allows a qualified electronic signature to carry the same legal weight as a hundred in signature [Music]