E-signature proposal under review
By : Roseanne Gerin
The Sejm will begin reviewing a new legislative proposal on electronic signatures this month, intended to create security standards for online transactions and bring the issue into line with European Union legislation. The move will also help boost Poland's nascent electronic-commerce market, parliamentarians said last week.
The Sejm's 24-page draft establishes legal regulations for securing the identities of those who conduct electronic transactions. Private and public cryptographic keys (identity codes) must match to verify e-signatures the electronic equivalent of handwritten signatures. Private keys are used by those sending data electronically and are matched by receivers who hold the sender's public keys.
"With current e-commerce, it's a question of safety," said Piotr Rutkowski, the managing partner of telecommunications consulting firm Rotel, which advises the Sejm on telecom-related regulatory matters. "Customers must trust the system, and someone must ensure the system is safe."
Spearheading the Sejm's e-signature proposal, Karol Dzialoszynski said more than 100 deputies signed the draft submitted to the speaker of the Sejm on Dec. 21. The proposal is now waiting to be assigned to a subcommittee for review.
Supporters of the Sejm's e-signature draft law anticipate that it will be sent to the European Integration subcommittee, which reviews EU-related legislation to accelerate its passage. Krzysztof Oksiuta, a member of the Communications Subcommittee, said he expected the e-signature law to be passed by May.
Dzialoszynski forecast that the first of the draft's three readings in Parliament would be completed in late January or early February. He added that the law would probably be passed by the end of May or early June if the draft is assigned to another committee.
The Sejm started discussing the electronic-signature issue last July when the government failed to complete its own proposal, Dzialoszynski said. Since then, the government's draft prepared by the Economy Ministry has been shifted to the Interior Ministry, which proposed that it should oversee the encryption regulations for e-signatures. The Sejm's proposal, Dzialoszynski said, would assign this duty to the Communications Ministry, which recently transferred many of its own regulatory responsibilities to an independent body under the new telecommunications law that took effect on Jan. 1.
The government's proposal may be introduced in the Sejm along with the deputies' draft, but the possible review of both proposals would not delay the law's passage, said sources familiar with the situation.
The Polish draft law is based on the EU's e-signature legislation which was passed on Dec. 13, 1999. Dzialoszynski said, however, that EU-member hopefuls, such as Poland, are not obligated to adopt the EU's rule as a prerequisite for membership. "Most EU countries have adopted an e-signature law, so we should follow the same path," he said.
Rutkowski added that the EU's law is a general set of legal guidelines for e-signatures and should not overshadow the need for a law to ensure a safe environment for e-commerce transactions in Poland. "It's not a question of EU directives only, but to take part in general worldwide e-commerce standards," he said. "It's a first step in terms of security, and the importance of security issues will increase."
According to an addendum to the Sejm's draft law, Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Finland are the EU-member countries with electronic-signature laws, while the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia are the EU-candidate countries with similar legislation.
