Electronic Signatures And Their Authenticity By - Amresh Swarnkar
Electronic
Signatures And Their Authenticity
Authored By -
Amresh Swarnkar
Maharashtra National Law University,
Aurangabad.
5th year (9th
Semester student), batch of 2018-23.
META DESCRIPTION
In this particular blog the concept
of electronic signatures has been discussed and the various facets related to
it like-
*What is the concept of electronic
signatures.
*What is a Digital Signature.
*What is a Digital Signature
Certificate.
*Scenario of existing laws governing
the concept of electronic signatures.
*Flaws related to the concept of
electronic signatures.
have also been discussed in order to
make the reader aware about the concept of e-signatures in detail.
INTRODUCTION
This particular blog is on the
subject matter that what is the whole concept of electronic signatures.
In this blog the various facets with
respect to electronic signatures have been covered in order to make the reader
aware of the concept of e-signatures in detail.
The various facets with respect to
Electronic Signatures covered in this blog are-
What is the concept of electronic
signatures, scenario of existing laws governing the concept of electronic
signatures, what is a digital signature, what is a Digital Signature
Certificate and flaws related to the concept of electronic signatures.
My findings and suggestions
pertaining to the concept of electronic signatures have been mentioned and
explained in the conclusion of this blog.
Tags/ Keywords associated with the
article:
·
Electronic
Signatures.
·
Laws
related to E-Signatures.
·
Concept
of Electronic Signatures.
·
Flaws
in Electronic Signatures.
·
Digital
Signatures.
·
Digital
Signature Certificate.
MAIN BLOG
Emergence of Electronic Signatures-
A signature can be said to be the ‘definite
identity’ of an individual being expressed on a piece of paper.
To keep the ongoing transactions and
the life of corporates, etc. to function smoothly the advent of Electronic
Signatures was necessary as before each and every individual had to go through
the whole document and go to the place where the documents were present
physically and then authenticate them via giving his/her signature but to keep
up with the fast pace of development this method proved to be outdated since
now individuals sitting from one part of the world could interact with someone
who is at a different part of the world or a country and it was not possible
and feasible in each scenario to travel far to such a distance just for the
purpose of authenticating the documents via signing them.
So the need of Electronic signatures
was a must and this concept developed to meet the needs of the fast developing
world.
Concept of E-Signatures-
An Electronic signature provides an electronic
representation of a particular person’s signature which represents that
individual’s identity electronically and when a particular person gives his
electronic signature on a particular document it works in the same fashion as
of a physical signature i.e. to give proof of consent and that person’s
assent to the contents of the document.
The European Union’s Regulation
910/214 regulated and defines an electronic signature as “in electronic form
which is attached to or logically associated with other data in electronic form
and used by the signatory to sign”.
Electronic Signatures as defined
under the law-
Electronic Signature is defined under
Section 2 (ta) of Information Technology Act, 2000 as-
“Authentication of any electronic
record by a subscriber by means of the electronic technique specified in the
second schedule and includes digital signature”.
The procedure of Digital Signature as
per the law-
Rule 4 of the Information Technology
(Certifying Authorities) Rules, 2000 explains the digital signature’s procedure
as:
1. To sign any electronic record or any
other piece of information, the person who is signing first has to apply the hash
function in the signer’s software (It is a function used to map data of an
arbitrary size into data of a fixed size). Values returned by this function are
known as hash codes, digests or hash values.
2. This function computes a hash result
of standard length unique to the record present electronically.
3. Signer’s software will convert this
hash result using the private key of the signer in a digital signature.
4. The resulting Digital Signature will
be unique to both electronic record and also the private key used to create the
digital signature.
5. This Digital Signature will be
attached to its electronic record and stored or transmitted with the Digital
Signature’s electronic record.
Verification of a Digital Signature-
Recipient will receive the Digital
Signature and the original message. After it the following two steps have to be
followed:
1. By applying the hash result a new
message digest is to be recovered from the original message.
2. Signer’s public key will be applied
to the digital signature which the recipient receives and as the outcome of it
another message digest will be recovered.
And if both the message digests prove
to be identical it will conclude that the message has not been altered.
Rule 5 of Information Technology
(Certifying Authorities) Rules, 2000 talks about the method of verification of
a digital signature:
“The verification of a Digital
Signature shall be attained by computing a new hash result of the original
electronic record by means of a hash function used to create a Digital
Signature and by using the new hash result and the public key”.
Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) -
It is a method to prove the
electronic document’s authenticity and can be presented electronically to
access information, to prove the identity or sign the documents digitally.
Controller of Certifying Authorities
appointed by the Central Government grants a license to the Certifying
Authorities in order to issue digital signature certificates to subscriber.
Elements of DSC –
1. Name of the issuer.
2. Owner’s name and public key.
3. Public Key’s expiry date.
4. Certificate’s Serial Number.
5. User’s Digital Signature.
Validity of a DSC-
A Digital Signature Certificate is
valid up to a maximum of three years period.
CONCLUSION
In this blog the concept of
Electronic Signatures has been dealt in detail covering the various aspects of
it like- What is the concept of electronic signatures, scenario of existing
laws governing the concept of electronic signatures, what is a digital
signature, what is a Digital Signature Certificate and flaws related to the
concept of electronic signatures.
This particular blog would help the
readers to analyze the concept of Electronic Signatures as all the various
aspects related to it have been dealt in depth in this blog.
Findings-
The main flaw which I found after a
research upon the topic of Electronic Signatures is that the Risk of fraud is
present in the concept since Electronic Signatures are electronically based
there is a high risk of fraud and signatory forging as the whole regime of
Electronic Signatures is based on the electronic platforms and internet, hence
it can be hacked and compromised leading to a great loss to the entities, individuals
or the organizations involved in that particular scenario.
Therefore, we can say that the
electronic signatures are a boon as well as a bane because at one hand they
help us in keeping up with the fast pace of development in this electronic era
but on the other a they also pose a high risk of fraud leading to unforeseen
losses to the individuals involved.
Suggestions-
To tackle this risk of fraud and
signatory forging in the concept of Electronic signatures a method of
double-verification can be adopted that is while signing any digital document
using electronic signatures the concerned persons should be first confirmed
that it is signed by them only and not someone else has done it via forging
their signature i.e. an adoption of additional anti-fraud measures such as
getting the authentication confirmation of that particular digital signature
via a phone call, e-mail, etc. should be first made before proceeding with the
further steps in the scenario of Electronic Signatures and in this way only
the fraud, signatory forging, etc. can be curbed.
REFERENCES
* www.techtarget.com
* www.docusign.com
* All India Reporter
* www.livelaw.in