Legislation Helping Digital Signature Technology
Posted on Mon, Jun 28, 2010
Organizations are adopting tools that are affordable, and yet faster and simpler than traditional ones. This ‘cost-effective’ business approach is at the core of growing paperless environment. As we move ahead, paperless procedures will become much more broad in their scope.
Nearly all industries are adopting digital signatures in one way or the other. From external communications to internal communications, digitally signed electronic documents have changed the way communications take place. Faster, simpler, yet secure and confidential, these communications have ignited the competition amongst businesses like never before. Digital signature software providers are customizing their products to meet the various requirements of different industries to serve their customers more efficiently and effectively.
Digital signatures are a tool to garner customers' confidence and support. At the core of this is is the legal validity of digital signatures. From banking transactions to medial records, and from online loan applications to tendering, digital signatures have the the ability to transform hectic business processes into simpler, less wasteful ones.The legal validity of digital signatures and the tools for securing the integrity of the digitally signed documents is fueling the acceptance of digital signatures in various industries. This legal validity is helping not only the end users, but also organizations to reach out to larger customer bases with innovation and simplicity.
The legal validity to digital signatures has changed the landscape of e-commerce globally. Some of the more popular applications are: e-banking, e-tendering, and e-procurement, e-approvals, and many other applications. e-Commerce is reaching new milestones everyday with the help of legally valid digital signatures. While assuring authentication and non-repudiation, digital signature technology maintains integrity and confidentiality of digitally signed electronic documents.
Several countries have laws that assign legal validity to digital signatures. Along with the security aspects, digital signatures also help businesses go paperless and be more efficient while saving on expenses associated with a "wet-signature" operation.
Some of the digital/electronic signature laws and regulations across the world put in place to encourage e-transactions:
* ESIGN Act (Electronic Signature in Global and National Commerce Act)
* UETA (Uniform Electronic Commerce Act)
* GPEA (Government Paperwork Elimination Act)
* EU law (EU Directive for Electronic Signatures)
* US DoD JITC (Joint Interoperability Test Command)
* Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
* SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act)
* 21 CFR Part 11
* Indian IT Act 2000
Worldwide legislation regarding this technology has fueled it's acceptance in every possible business, from banking to insurance, and from health care to retail, the common consensus is moving towards digitally signed electronic documents, saving time, money, and paper.