Legal Status of Qualified Electronic Signatures in Europe

Abstract

It is a common misunderstanding that, in Europe, in order to have a legally valid electronic signature, you need a „qualified“ electronic signature. The European Electronic Signatures Directive is very clear in this respect, though: it is forbidden to deny any legal effectiveness to an electronic signature solely on the ground that it is not qualified, for instance, because it is not based on a qualified certificate or because it was not created with a secure signature-creation device. The only consequence of using a „qualified“ electronic signature is the „automatic“ application of existing legal rules which are still referring to the handwritten signature. These rules are progressively disappearing because modern legislation no longer exclusively refers to information processing in paper format. The „qualified“ electronic signature is therefore only a temporary concept, mainly useful for bridging a transition period. It can, on a longer term, be useful to have a standardized secure electronic signature for all kinds of applications, but such a standard should preferably not be dictated by the legal rules on the „qualified“ electronic signature.