[FYI] Electronic signature standardisation

[Horns@t-online.de (Axel H. Horns)]

                    CORDIS RTD-NEWS/c European Communities, 1999. 

                    Record Control Number: 13247

                    Date: 1999-07-08

                    Category: General policy

                    General Information:

                    A draft for standardising electronic business
                    transactions compiled by the European
                    Telecommunications Standards Institute's (ETSI) is
                    now available on the Web. 

                    The draft, under the European Electronic Signature
                    Standardisation Initiative (EESSI), follows the
                    European Commission's proposal for a directive to
                    provide a Community framework for electronic
                    signatures. The focus of research is to determine
                    the legal validity of electronic signatures. 

                    The aim of the first set of standards is to meet
                    the minimum requirements required for the
                    interoperability of electronic signatures used in
                    secure business transactions, thereby encouraging
                    the development of secure e-commerce. 

                    The current proposal covers a range of
                    standardisation activities, including naming
                    conventions and restraints, the format of
                    electronic signature tokens and their
                    sub-components, and the selection of protocols to
                    interoperate with public repositories. 

                    ETSI would like to encourage comments on the
                    draft, in preparation for a final draft being
                    scheduled for publication in September 1999. 

                    Data Source Provider: Electronic publishing

                    Document Reference: Electronic publishing weekly
                    (El.Pub).

                    Subject Index Codes: Electronics,
                    Microelectronics; Information Processing,
                    Information Systems

                    Contact Person:

                    For further information please see the following
                    websites: 

                    URL: draft standard
                    http://www.etsi.org/sec/el-sign.htm URL: EESSI
                    http://www.ict.etsi.org