Synopsis of Digital Signatures: A Survey of Law and Practice in the European Union

With the explosion of e-commerce, and especially the use of the internet for business transactions, the paperless office should surely already have become a reality. Its progress has, however, been impede by tha lack of sufficient information security and a workable legal framework. So where are we now? Can we really trust electronic business transactions to be reliable, provable and enforceable, even on an international basis? Find the answers in this ground-breaking study undertaken for the European Commission. Carried out by the Interdisciplinary Centre for law and Information Technology of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, it provides a country-by-country review of the technology and deployment of electronic signatures. It also examines the legal and regulatory issues and the legal framework relating to their use in Europe and beyond.