Date: May 29, 2024 | Time: 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

The CSC Trust Without Borders Summit in Tokyo brings together government representatives, regulators, policymakers, industry leaders, and business experts for insightful discussions about the role of digital trust and identity in our globally connected society. Convened by the Cloud Signature Consortium, this event is designed to spark in-depth conversations about enhancing interoperability across borders. Participants will have the opportunity to explore real-world applications that demonstrate the effective implementation of identity and trust services within various national contexts. The summit will also provide a platform to unpack the influence of European Union regulations on global practices and to share case studies exemplifying successful cross-border interoperability.

Programme

09:00 am – 10:00 am
Welcome and Registrations

10:00 am – 10:30 am
Opening Remarks

• Welcome Address by CSC President – About CSC and this Event
• Welcome by Local Host – About Developments in Japan and the Region
• Introduction of the Summit Agenda and Goals

10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Session 1: Implementing Trust & Identity Services in National Contexts

Government representatives/ regulators and their advisors will share valuable insights on implementing trust and identity services within national contexts. Case studies showcasing successful national implementations will be presented, offering practical examples of effective collaborations between authorities, regulators and industry. The session aims to explore best practices and lessons learned from national initiatives – including the inclusion of interoperability criteria.

• Insights from Government Representatives and Regulators (EU, Japan, tbc)
• Case Studies on Successful National Implementations (call for member case studies)

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Networking Lunch

1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Session 2: The Importance of Global Interoperability of Identity & Trust Services

In this session, 3 leading stakeholders from different backgrounds (industry, policy, society) will short inspirational speeches highlighting the significance of identity and trust services for advancing digital transformation and the need for interoperability across borders. A panel discussion will delve into the challenges and opportunities in achieving seamless cross-border trust. The goal is to set a foundation for understanding the critical role of interoperability in today’s interconnected digital landscape.

• Inspirational Speeches by 3 leading stakeholders (industry, policy, society)
• Panel Discussion on Global Interoperability Challenges

2:30 pm – 3:30 pm
Session 3: Creating A Positive Environment for Digital Transformation

This session will focus on real-world applications and innovations in digital trust and identity products and services that are relevant for regulators/ policy makers to know and understand. Industry experts will discuss strategies for creating a positive environment for digital trust and identity services for the good of business, society and environment. The interactive panel aims to facilitate discussions on improving cross-border trust frameworks and promoting global harmonization in identity standards.

• Real-world Applications and Innovations for Cross-Border Collaborations (call for member case studies)
• Interactive Panel on Enhancing Interoperability (Japanese Regulator, CSC board member,..)

3:30 pm – 4:00 pm
Closing Session
Summarizing Key Takeaways
Future Outlook and Next Steps

4:00 pm onwards
Meet and Greet
Networking Session
(Followed by Reception at 5:00 pm)

🌟 We are thrilled to share that some new Board members and Committee leads of the Cloud Signature Consortium have been appointed, consisting of professionals from 6 important trust services providers:

🔵 Jochen Felsner from D-Trust GmbH Internetservice as the new Secretary
🔵 François Chassery from CERTINOMIS as the new Treasurer
🔵 Guillaume Forget from Cryptomathic as the new Marketing Committee Chair
🔵 Ionut Florea from certSIGN as the new Marketing Committee Vice-Chair
🔵 Arvind Srinivasan from eMudhra as the new Advocacy Committee Chair
🔵 Carrie Peter from Impression Signatures as the new Advocacy Committee Vice-Chair

The role of these new Board members and Committee leads will be to advocate for the large-scale and beneficial adoption of electronic signatures by organisations all over the world to support their secure digital transformation, while promoting fruitful idea exchange among the CSC members who are invited to contribute their own experience and insight to further develop comprehensive standards for the trust service market in light of eIDAS 2.0 Regulation.

👉 Meet the new Board members and Committee leads here.

#eIDAS2#electronicsignature#digitalidentity#cloudsignatureconsortium

(BRUSSELS / SENIGALLIA) – November 29, 2023 – Namirial S.p.A. (“Namirial”), a global leader in digital trust software and services has joined the Cloud Signature Consortium VZW (Cloud Consortium, CSC), a nonprofit association of industry, government, and academic organizations with more than 70 members focussing on cloud-based electronic signatures and seals.

Viky Manaila, President of the Cloud Signature Consortium comments: “We are delighted to welcome Namirial as the newest executive member of the Cloud Signature Consortium. Namirial brings a wealth of expertise and capabilities that will undeniably enrich our ecosystem. The globalization of Namirial operations in recent years has been closely linked to the evolution of cloud signatures, powered for example by EU Regulation 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS). We welcome them in actively supporting the consortium in years to come in dealing with the challenges associated to the eIDAS-revision.” 

Namirial Digital Trust Services encompass solutions for customer onboarding, agreement automation, signature workflow orchestration, identification, multi-factor authentication, electronic signature, electronic registered delivery, long-term archive, and electronic invoice.  

Davide Coletto, Chief Technology Officer of Namirial, comments: We highly appreciate the work the Cloud Signature Consortium. We are facing the challenges of interoperability every day as we operate globally and have several trust service providers based in different countries within our group. The Namirial experts are committed to collaborate with fellow experts in the Cloud Signature Consortium. Technically spoken we will support the CSC-standard shortly, drive its advancement. We will also jointly deliver enlightening in addressing prejudices, debunking myths, establish and foster trust in cloud-based digital trust services. Namirial experts will be engaging on site at the upcoming CSC Connections member event November 23 in Bergamo.” 

About Cloud Signature Consortium

The Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC) is a nonprofit association of industry, government, and academic organizations with members focussing on cloud-based electronic signatures and seals. The association is committed to building and improving standards for cloud-based trust services that support web and mobile applications and comply with the most demanding electronic signature regulations in the world. It is providing an open technical specification that makes solutions interoperable and suitable for uniform adoption in the global market. The CSC open-source licensed API helps to ensure the highest level of technical assurance, underscoring the value of the technology and ensuring interoperability and acceptance from providers and government entities. CSC-standards are also well aligned with the specifications of numerous standardisation bodies working on digital trust services and cloud technologies.

One of Cloud Signature Consortium’s major current activities today is the engagement in work on the revision of EU Regulation 910/2014 on Electronic Identification and Trust Services (eIDAS). As the Regulation is undergoing significant revision, the Cloud Signature Consortium specifications are set up to enable the easy use and adoption of digital signatures within the EU digital wallet context.

To learn more, visit cloudsignatureconsortium.org, follow Cloud Signature Consortium on LinkedIn YouTube and X or contact Cloud Signature Consortium . 

Media Contact:

Bori Csala
Cloud Signature Consortium – Secretariat
info@cloudsignatureconsortium.org
Phone: +32 2 761 66 85

About Namirial Group 

Namirial supports customers in their digital transformation journey by providing solutions for trusted digital transaction management. Namirial digital trust services encompass solutions for customer onboarding, agreement automation, signature workflow orchestration, identification, multi-factor authentication, electronic signature, electronic registered delivery, long-term archive and electronic invoice.  
 
Namirial Group includes Namirial, Netheos now Namirial France (acquired in 2021), Evicertia, Bit4ID Group, Uanataca, Agenzia Trotta (all acquired in 2022) and Unimatica (acquired in 2023). Namirial, Evicertia and Uanataca are accredited as qualified trust service providers under EU Regulation 910/2014 eIDAS. 
 
Founded in 2000 in Senigallia, Italy, Namirial Group is operating today in over 85 countries, employing over 900 people. Together with its international network of over 150 strategic partners, the Namirial Group serves over three million customers worldwide, processing several million transactions every day.  

To learn more, visit namirial.com, follow Namirial on LinkedIn, X, YouTube and Facebook or contact Namirial  

Media Contact 

Jörg Lenz 
Namirial, Head of Marketing & Communication 
j.lenz@namirial.com 
Phone: +49 174 2409 299 

By Cristina Rotaru, Marketing Specialist, CertSIGN

The integration of certSIGN’s Paperless remote electronic signature service into Acrobat Sign enables the electronic signing of documents from any device – desktop, laptop or smartphone – by accessing a single platform.

The digital certificates for electronic signature issued by certSIGN are natively integrated into Acrobat Sign, so that the user does not need to install any additional drivers or software to sign electronic documents.

The Paperless remote electronic signature provisioned by certSIGN covers all stages of a fully online user experience: from the remote video identification necessary to issue a digital certificate to the signing of a document by multiple signatories.

certSIGN issues different types of certificates, allowing creation of various types of signatures, with different assurance levels. The qualified electronic signature integrated within Acrobat Sign provides the highest level of assurance with respect to signed documents since it has the same legal effect of a handwritten signature under the eIDAS Regulation.

“Easy access to an electronic signature solution with the same legal effect as a handwritten signature has become a business necessity and companies acknowledge the need to complete transactions remotely, whenever and wherever the designated signatories are. The integration of the Paperless service with Acrobat Sign, an industry leader in digital experiences, provides users with a completely online electronic document management experience meant to improve process efficiency and the security of electronically signed documents.” states Adrian Floarea, CEO of certSIGN.

The integration into Acrobat Sign was achieved using the standard developed by the Cloud Signature Consortium that defines a unified way of interaction between electronic document signing applications such as Acrobat Sign and eIDAS compliant electronic signature services provided by trust service providers, such as Paperless developed by certSIGN.

More info here.

By Leonel Arroyo Conde, Deputy General Manager, PSC World SA de CV

In Mexico, and many parts of Latin America, the use of electronic signature services is entirely valid for electronic documents, producing the same effects as the handwritten signature, as long as the electronic signature meets various factors that could be considered necessary for evidentiary purposes.

In the event of litigation, it will be required to prove that the signatures on the documents and their content are entirely valid and legal. This mechanism ensures the correct and complete acceptance of the will to sign the document.

For example, electronic evidence of a simple electronic signature or digital signature in a data message and/or signed document allows it to be presented in court in its original form. This is supported, if necessary, by an expert report, as is customary in the traditional application of the considerations for a handwritten signature in procedural regulations, but with the significant advantage of various legal presumptions established in substantive legislation.

For a data message and/or signed document to be considered legally valid, it is necessary to ensure that the contained information meets the following characteristics:

INTEGRITY:

Understood in two aspects: Firstly, regarding the method’s reliability in generating, communicating, receiving, and storing it. Secondly, it ensures that the information contained has not been altered.

ATTRIBUTION:

This is the way to guarantee that the parties involved in the legal relationship are really who they claim to be and express their will without defects.

This attribution to the parties involved in the legal relationship that is intended to be formalized in a data message is nothing more than a “SIGNATURE” that can be created either with an electronic autograph on an electronic device, using means of identification, or through an “Information System” programmed by the sender or on their behalf, which operates automatically (such as an electronic signature platform complying with the Electronic Signature Law and the Commercial Code for the generation of electronic signatures).

ACCESSIBILITY:

This refers to the content of a signed data message being available to the user (sender, receiver, judge, auditor, authorities, etc.) for future reference if it meets the abovementioned characteristics.

It is important to emphasize that the physical medium through which the content of a data message is made available to the user may be different from that on which it was created since the integrity of the data message, not the physical medium, must be guaranteed that it contains it.

In principle, a data message and/or a document signed with a digital signature should be understood as a means of documentary evidence with specific evaluation requirements, as established in procedural regulations.

In summary, a simple or digital electronic signature constitutes a valid way to express the consent of the signatories and formalize electronically executed documents. In the case of an advanced electronic signature, the validation of the consent of the signatories is granted from the moment of its creation due to its non-repudiation.

Digital evidence generated by a PSC accredited by the Ministry of Economy in Mexico

To generate more evidence in the signing of documents, there is the possibility of applying a Data Message Preservation Certificate generated in accordance with NOM-151-SCFI-2016 and a Digital Time Stamp (international standard RFC-3161), supported by the provisions of the Commercial Code. These are auxiliary services for the generation of evidence provided by a Certification Service Provider Accredited by the Ministry of Economy, such as PSC World S.A. de C.V., which has the specific purpose of:

• Data Message Preservation Certificate generated in accordance with NOM-151-SCFI-2016:
  • Ensure that an electronic document has remained intact and unaltered since it was first created in its final form.
  • Provide legal certainty and integrity for a data message to be used as evidence, ensuring it has not been modified and/or altered.
• Digital Time Stamping
  • Serve as evidence that a piece of data existed before a particular time.
  • Enable traceability of specific data transactions.

With these services, documents can achieve:

• Greater legal certainty in transactions by having data messages that are completely intact and unaltered and by specifying the exact moment when the action takes place.
• Increased efficiency in signing processes.

By Margus Pala, CEO, eID Easy

Estonia had free qualified electronic signatures for 20 years now and there is a thriving ecosystem where almost everything is signed using QES. The same thing is happening in many other countries:  Austria with ID offers a free signature portal, Portugal with Chave Movel allows free QES creation, and the list goes on.

eID Easy is helping businesses get the most value out of the free QES. We pay decent amounts to QTSP-s but there is still money left for our own costs. We have seen how free QES allows us to make money and we are happy to share the details with you as well.

First of all, there will not be any free QES. If there is no money, then no TSP will lift their finger until somebody pays to issue certificates and create signatures.

Estonia has 3 main options for creating QES: National ID card, Mobile-ID and Smart-ID. Last two are maintained by our fellow CSC member SK ID Solutions.

• The ID card has QES certifications issued based on a tender and everyone has it by default as it is a mandatory document for all citizens. There are well-built developer guides, so it is fairly easy to integrate signing documents on this smart card to your application.
• Mobile-ID is based on a SIM card and it is used to cost up to 1 EUR per month which was to be paid to the mobile operator. Now, it is mostly included in your mobile package by default, without any additional charges.
• Smart-ID is a free mobile application with LoA high and remote QES capability using Splitkey whitelabel solution where private key 3072 bits are in the device and 3072 bits in the remote HSM.

All these tools can be used to sign documents for free by any end-user in an app called DigiDoc4. This app is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone meaning that any Estonian can sign documents on any of their devices free of charge. The Estonian Information System Authority is developing and maintaining the DigiDoc4 and footing all the bills for QES and qualified timestamps created there.

This app has one major downside, it does not integrate with any of the business processes, as it is a completely standalone product. With any mentionable volume document signing flow you need to email the documents back and forth which quickly can become unmanageable. This also means that businesses that want to sign documents in their workflows need to pay in order to get direct access and save money by digitization.

Key to QTSP success is to make sure everyone has their certificates. More certificates will create more usage, more transactions and therefore, more value.

eID Easy believes that the future of Europe and the World will be very similar. Qualified electronic signatures will cost very little and there will be exponential growth in use cases and volumes which will fully compensate for the reduced transaction costs.