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2020-11-10

European Forum on Electronic Signature 2020 – key findings

 

The European Forum on Electronic Signature and Trust Services is Europe’s largest conference dedicated to this topic. This year’s edition, held under the main theme of “Trusted Economy”, was attended by nearly 600 participants from nearly 40 countries. The effect of this meeting is, among others, the “Final Statement” prepared by Asseco Data Systems – the organizer of the meeting, which summarizes the most important conclusions from this year’s event. Also released was the report titled “Trusted economy in the new reality. Mitigation of the risks associated with rapid digitization”, which was premiered during the conference. The document can be downloaded at www.efpe.pl, where all presentations and speeches in video form are also made available.

Final Statement of the European Forum on Electronic Signature and Trust Services, 30 September 2020

The European Forum on Electronic Signature and Trust Services (EFPE) as Europe’s largest international conference on digital trust and security services and electronic identification annually gathers representatives of scientific community, state and local administration, business and international organizations dedicated to electronic communication, and is a must-attend event in the calendar of these institutions. The main theme of this year’s 20th edition of the EFPE 2020 Conference was “Trusted Economy”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this was the first time that the conference was held exclusively online. This year we were treated to presentations and views from 30 panelists and speakers, and the entire conference was attended by nearly 600 participants from 39 countries, including: Albania, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and United Arab Emirates.

Numerous fire chats and the discussion panel played an extremely important role during the conference. The discussions were organized in four main thematic blocks:

  • Trust Services and eID: market overlook
  • “Trusted Economy” in practice
  • “Trusted Economy” tools
  • Looking into the future

The speakers and experts attending the conference agreed that electronic identification is one of the most important issues in the economy based on trust services. A key element is standardization and unification of both technological and legislative frameworks. It is also important to create solutions that are easy to use and attractive to end users, which will allow them to quickly gain popularity. It was also pointed out that there is a need to develop legal rules governing the supervision and control of electronic identification service providers. Secure and transparent electronic identification, delivered as a qualified trust service, will bring huge benefits in implementing GDPR and protecting the rights of consumers and citizens.

The necessity of wider and uniform regulation of solutions based on remote identification and video identification on the European market was also pointed out. These types of solutions are extremely desirable, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the entire world. Already today we are witnessing intensive development of technology and increasing popularization of solutions based on remote channels in virtually every sector. Experts consider it as a natural stimulator of the development of trust services, and it is extremely important to obtain support for these services from supervisory authorities and public administration on equal terms across the European Union.

Another important element of the conference was a block devoted to practical implementations of the paperless technology within business processes. At the same time the speakers emphasized the benefits and new opportunities that have emerged thanks to trust services that could be fully integrated with corporate systems. As a result it became easy to use such solutions as electronic signature, electronic seal, time stamping and, what is very important, validation. They also noted that companies that had already implemented fully electronic processes based on trust services before the pandemic gained a competitive advantage in the market.

An important issue raised during the conference was the analysis indicating the great role that e-delivery services can and should play in electronic communication. Unfortunately, these services are available and widely utilized only in some (few?) EU countries, and are practically non-existent at the cross-border level. This is a situation that urgently calls for the cooperation of Member States and trust service providers in order to create opportunities for the use of registered electronic delivery throughout the entire digital market. The speakers stressed that some of the conclusions emerging from the discussions and presentations should be taken into account in the process of reviewing the eIDAS Regulation that is currently underway.

The revision of eIDAS is an excellent opportunity for the implementation of adjustments and changes necessary four years into its operation, for example regarding the already mentioned issue of a uniform approach of Member States’ supervision authorities to the functioning of remote identity verification techniques.

Qualified Website Authentication Certificates (QWAC certificates) was another topic that came up during the event. The speakers pointed out the lack of good communication with web browser technology providers and the need to create a proper standard for displaying pages secured with this type of certificate to users. They also highlighted threats of web browser providers seeking to regulate the standards and validity of certificates in isolation from the currently existing security standards and user requirements. This situation can lead to the imposition of requirements that are not in line with the European legal regulations by such companies.

The conference marked the premiere of the report “Trusted economy in the new reality. Mitigation of the risks associated with rapid digitization“, the main objective of which is to answer the question in which areas and how the accelerated digitization of enterprises and public administration took place during the COVID-19 pandemic period from March to September 2020.

Focusing on the Polish experience, the authors went on to extend this perspective onto other European countries, for which the experience of the first months of the pandemic and its consequences was equally or even more intense and difficult. The second important objective of the Report is to consider to what extent trust services and electronic identification (eID) – the solutions that have been created and developed specifically to become the basic tools of digitization – have proven successful in this “trial” situation. Special attention was paid to the legal aspects – to be able to verify how well legislation was able to keep up with the changes that were happening at an unprecedented pace. The entire Report is available for download at www.efpe.pl

We can already see the benefits of electronic identification services combined with trust services, which will undoubtedly develop even more intensively in the coming years. The Participants and the organizers agreed that the EFPE conference is of great significance for the spreading of practical knowledge, and the next year’s edition of this conference should specifically address the needs of new beneficiaries of electronic identification and trust services. It is also expected that there will be stronger cooperation between the public and private sectors and, in particular, that measures aimed at easy recognition and acceptance of qualified trust services by public administrations will be reinforced. At the same time, the prevailing view was that public administration in individual countries should primarily focus on the digitization of processes and on remote services for citizens and businesses, rather than building their own trust services, especially since there is an already developed market for providers of these services. The effect of the synergy that can then be achieved should contribute to the widespread use of electronic communication in its broadest sense, while at the same time making it fully cross-border, which is particularly important in view of the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept across the globe in 2020.

This final document was prepared by international experts and participants during the EFPE 2020 in English, Polish and Russian. We ask that politicians and legislators, in their future actions, consider this modest contribution of the EFPE in the European and international discussion.