Electronic Signature mag. Janez Toplišek

Electronic signature - Adjusting technological and legal solutions in electronic commerce
(Master's degree work; in Slovenian)

English Summary:

All legal systems are based on paper messaging. Thus they are suspicious about legal enforceability of electronic messages. This relationship is rapidly changing because of massive electronic commerce. But the key legal solutions giving the electronic message full enforceability are still missing. In this context the most important issue appears to be the electronic signature. The term electronic signature is generally used for all possible forms of electronic signing, while digital signature is usually used for encrypted signature using asymmetric keys. The author throws light upon the fact that hand-written signature is actually not a stable and reliable form. Considering all technological/organisational elements of the electronic signature, it is obvious that it has much greater efficiency than a hand-written one. Besides the classic signature functions it makes feasible many others. The most efficient is the digital signature, which seems to be at the time the most reliable authenticator for electronic messaging.

The author concludes that electronic signing will hardly be put forward without assuring the general legal admissibility/enforceability of electronic messages. Legal rules should be programme-benevolent ("electronically-permissive language") and support new ways of businesses. We should eliminate all terms from existing laws which absolutely hinder electronic messaging, and retain paper-bound terms only where explicitly grounded. A questionnaire-research among Slovenian lawyers in February 1996 indicated that the lawyers are aware of efficiency-opportunities which are arising from electronic commerce. But the questionnaire also pointed to the fact that they are not familiar enough with practical forms of electronic commerce and especially not with electronic signing.

KEYWORDS:
cryptography, digital signature, EDI, electronic commerce, electronic mail, electronic signature, hand-written signature, Internet, security, law, notary

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