EEMA, the European forum for electronic business, reports on implementation of the European Electronic Signatures Directive.
EEMA, the European forum for electronic business, recently brought together legal experts from 19 European countries to compare the differing interpretations and states of implementation of the European Electronic Signatures Directive, which should have been introduced into the law of each European country by July 19. With the exception of Germany, member states have not succeeded to meet the July 2001 deadline but the meeting concluded that there were valid reasons. Representatives from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK met at the QEII Conference Centre in London to compare the different interpretations of the Directive in each state, to form of view on the practical consequences for the use of electronic signatures in Europe. As Jos Dumortier, the chair of EEMA’s legal work group and professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium commented: ?It became very clear in the full day discussion that member states are implementing the Directive in different ways, and have placed varying degrees of importance on its integration into national law. It was also very evident that there are some
very valid reasons for the delays.? The delays included the fact that the standards for product certification, supervision and accreditation of services by the standards bodies involved
(ETSI and CEN) have not yet been published, and countries are awaiting clarification of these standards before they decide how to proceed. In addition, slow legislation in certain states means slow adoption into the law of that state. There was also concern by some countries that there was until now, little guidance on a European level about the strategies being adopted by other European countries. The meeting acted as a starting point in clearing up this concern by comparing the strategies in the 19 countries. It became clear that different countries have different views on the level of supervision and accreditation schemes necessary for validation of electronic signatures; the German government has been looking at this area since 1996, and developed their own legislation prior to the Directive. This legislation has since been modified in line with the Directive, but still maintains high security requirements for certification of products and services. Other countries, including the UK, are letting industry requirements lead the way, and are setting up supervision and
accreditation schemes accordingly, in line with industry demands through the Scheme project. ?This meeting was the first of many steps in clarifying and coordinating the varying approaches to the Directive” said Dumortier. ?The Directive is seen as a very complex issue, but doesn’t need to be. As long as the differing approaches to the implementation into each national law are monitored and compared, we can ensure that certification authorities (CAs),
certification service providers (CSPs), regulatory / supervisory authorities (RAs), vendors of PKI products and legal bodies in each country, all of whom will be affected by it, can become fully informed about what it means to them in practice.? A two-day EEMA workshop on the legal impact of the Electronic Signatures
Directive on business is on November 29-30 in Brussels. For more information on this workshop, contact [email protected] or visit
http://www.eema.org.
