Definition of electronic signature

(b) To adduce evidence of the non reliability of an electronic signature.

Member States are required to ensure that advanced electronic signatures which are based on a qualified certificate and which are created by a secure signature creation device satisfy the legal requirements of a signature and are admissible as evidence in legal proceedings.

(a) The authenticity of electronic signatures relating to tenders can be established comply with relevant electronic signature legislation, e.g. that based on Model Law on Electronic Signatures

(a) To take reasonable steps to verify the reliability of an electronic signature or

(b) Where an electronic signature is supported by a certificate, to take reasonable steps

The party relying on a signature, whether handwritten or electronic, takes the risk that the signature is not valid or that it is a forgery.

(c) Any alteration to the electronic signature, made after the time of signing, is detectable and

Draft paragraph 3 (b) was not intended to confer legal validity on an electronic signature but simply to make it the functional equivalent of a handwritten signature.

(i) Acoustically activated fuzes use electronic sensors to react to acoustic pressure and recognize the acoustic signature.

(i) Acoustically activated fuzes use electronic sensors to react to acoustic pressure and recognize the acoustic signature.

Current article 13 of the Model Law on Electronic Commerce gives no particular effect to a signature.

3. An electronic signature created or used outside the enacting State shall have the same legal effect in the enacting State as an electronic signature created or used in the enacting State if it offers a substantially equivalent level of reliability.

Paragraph 3 (a) provides that only an electronic signature that fulfils both the function of identification of the party as well as the function of indicating that party's approval of the information contained in the electronic communication meets that legal requirement of a signature in relation to an electronic communication.

1. Where a certification service provider provides services to support an electronic signature that may be used for legal effect as a signature, that certification service provider shall

(a) To the geographic location where the certificate is issued or the electronic signature created or used or

(f) Relying party means a person that may act on the basis of a certificate or an electronic signature.

The purpose of the draft convention was to indicate how a single set of rules of law should best be interpreted in the field of electronic communications and not to create a legal entity, an electronic signature, with a separate status from a handwritten signature.

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It was suggested that, in the interests of uniformity, the draft instrument should adopt a definition of electronic signature based on other UNCITRAL instruments such as the Model Law on Electronic Signatures (2001) and the Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996).

A secure electronic archive system has brought the searching for and retrieval of information up to the latest standards.

In our view, setting up a test of reliability that is independent of the will of the parties and independent of the fact of signature creates uncertainty about the validity of an electronic signature.

3. An electronic signature is considered to be reliable for the purpose of satisfying the requirement referred to in paragraph 1 if

1. In determining whether, or to what extent, a certificate or an electronic signature is legally effective, no regard shall be had

Other views were expressed that the term electronic signature should not be defined, and that it should be left to national law.

The phrase A method is used to identify the party and to associate that party with the information contained in the electronic communication represents the minimum functional requirements of any signature, handwritten or electronic.

On the contrary, it prohibits Member States from discriminating against any signature method on the sole ground that it is in electronic form.

The objective was to ensure that, if an electronic signature fulfilled the functions described in draft article 9, paragraph 3 (a), a party could not challenge the validity of that signature on the grounds of non reliability.

We are of the view that, compared with article 7 of the Model Law on Electronic Commerce, article 6 of the Model Law on Electronic Signatures can significantly increase legal certainty by having set out well detailed standards for determining the reliability of an electronic signature.

signature illegible quot authorized signature quot

Further, it was thought that, in order to be commercially practicable, a definition of electronic signature should be uncomplicated and inexpensively met in practice.

The programme includes modelling of electronic procurement phases such as electronic tendering, electronic awarding of contracts, electronic ordering, electronic invoicing and electronic catalogues.

Signature

Signature

They were needed, inter alia, to assist States that were enacting new laws in determining what criteria an electronic signature had to fulfil in order to be equivalent to a handwritten signature and also to encourage the use of new technology.

Name and signature of preparer Name and signature

(a) To establish in any other way, for the purpose of satisfying the requirement referred to in paragraph 1, the reliability of an electronic signature or

A party could try to invalidate his own electronic signature as being insufficiently reliable, in order to invalidate a contract, where it is convenient to him.

In our view, electronic signatures are merely another form of signature, and should in principle be legally valid as signatures without any special requirements of reliability.

Whether an electronic communication that fulfilled the requirement of a signature has legal validity is to be settled under the law applicable outside the draft convention.

The Directive gives special legal status equivalence to a handwritten signature only to what it calls advanced electronic signatures', but it allows legal effect to others.

Questions of proof of the making of the signature (which exist for both handwritten and electronic signatures) should not distort the law on the validity of signatures.

The principal aim of the Directive is to ensure that electronic signature products that comply with the Directive are permitted to circulate freely in the internal market.

In the Model Law on Electronic Commerce, article 7 and article 13 together affirmed the validity of an electronic signature and allowed the attribution of the data message to an originator as long as the addressee used a method agreed upon with the originator to verify the authenticity of the message, without the need to demonstrate the authenticity of the signature itself.

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