Critical comments on the European directive on a common framework for electronic signatures and certification service providers

Abstract

Hand-written signatures are not possible in the new context of electronic commerce. Then, electronic signatures, together with certificates, are offered as a substitutive solution for a wide scale electronic commerce. From a juridical point of view, these technical solutions creates new questions, insecurities and uncertainties that demands a legal regulation to solve them. This is the objective of the directive for a common framework on electronic signature that has been recently approved by the European Union. The goal of this paper is comment and criticize the content of this directive. The paper concludes with some observations that show that the directive presents, on one hand, important oversights (there doesn’t exist a complete vision of the certificate and its life cycle, specially with regard to a question as important as the revocation; it ignores the temporary problem of the system) and on the other, important excesses (in the delicate theme of liability).