New EU Action Plan on Esignatures

December 29, 2008

It is interesting that the EU, whose Esignature Directive  generated much of the impetus and direction for the ETSI TS 101 903 and the W3C XAdES standards, has now acknowledged that they have not been successful in standardizing electronic signatures for cross border use of member states. I suspect that the trusted credential infrastructure challenge referenced in my paper XML Electronic Signatures has created at least part of the problem.

The original European Directive mandated that they would have interoperable e-signatures and electronic identification for government by the end of 2009, but it doesn’t look to me like they will make it. It seems that they now have an “Action Plan on e-signatures and e-identification to facilitate the provision of cross-border public services in the Single Market”

Gosh – and I thought that they were so far ahead of us!

1 Comment | digital signature, electronic document, esignature, XML digital signature, XML electronic signature | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Ambrose

Let’s Get Started..

December 18, 2008

One of the hardest things about using electronic signatures in enterprises seems to be getting started. Or, as it was once put to me, “How do I justify putting this in my top 10 projects that will actually get done this year?”

One way that I think works well is to just begin by using one of the easy, hosted services for a couple of the occasional needs that you may have.  I use Echosign, a pioneer in this area, for executing NDAs and the like in my personal business. I have  found that the people that I send them to are ok with this, it is faster, and gives me a signed electronic document so that I don’t have to keep as many faxed copies and originals on hand.  In fact the money saved on FedEx can probably pay for the service!

I would suggest that anyone considering electronic signatures can easily get started by using a hosted service provided by one of a few providers.  You can start with just something relatively simple like NDAs that probably run outside of your standard workflow system anyway.  And once you get started you will find that a number of signature suppliers already integrate with the top CRM or ECM systems.  If you use Salesforce.com, the current version of Echosign supports it. Of course you would have to upgrade from the free version that I use for my small business!  (0;

2 Comments | electronic document, esignature | Permalink
Posted by Mike Ambrose

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