The European Union has unanimously passed its long-awaited e-commerce directive, which seeks to legitimize the use of electronic signatures in transactions. The Council of Ministers accepted the Electronic Signature Directive Tuesday, and it now has 18 months to be implemented on a local level by member states, something most countries are already working on.
Under the directive, e-signatures are given the same legal weight as handwritten ones, as long at the certificate and certification authority meet certain legal requirements. The signatures are binding, legally admissible, and do not take account of any particular technology, in order to keep up with the pace of change. Online products and services will be subject to the laws of the country in which they originate and service providers will now have the liability for the content they carry limited.
European commissioner Fritz Bolkestein said the directive paved the way for the EC to develop the whole area of e-commerce. Half of the EUÆs population is expected to be online by 2005.
