What does the future hold for e-signature, e-seal and e-government? Check out the growth forecasts for the trust services market in 2021!

The year 2020 was a watershed year for more than a few companies, bringing changes to work, sales and service delivery models and accelerating their digitization. It also broke down many of the barriers – organizational and mental – against running a paperless business. Trust services have played a significant role in this transformation, increasing the power to influence business, government, and the daily lives of citizens. That is why it is a good idea to follow their development.

1. Electronic signature becomes a cloud-based solution

Physical cryptographic cards and tokens that store electronic certificates, including qualified signature certificates, will give way to cloud-based solutions that offer convenience, mobility and here-and-now access.

Although Poland’s first cloud-based qualified electronic signature – SimplySign has been available from Certum for several years, it is only now that it is becoming a dominant solution, which has been appreciated by clients. At the peak of the lockdown, interest in the tool was 600 percent higher than a year earlier.

Similar trends are seen around the world, where more organizations are joining the Adobe Cloud Signature Consortium, which aims to develop secure cloud-based qualified signature standards, among other things. It also includes Asseco Data Systems.

2. E-delivery will close the gap

E-delivery is another service defined in the eIDAS Regulation that will be implemented in Poland in 2021. It will enable the receipt of official letters in electronic form, eliminating the paper form of these documents. Until now, opting out has not been an option.

Mandatory possession of an electronic delivery address will first apply to government and business. Individual users will be able to take advantage of this on a voluntary basis.

The maintenance of mail collection boxes is the responsibility of the Polish Postal Service, as the national operator. The ability for commercial entities to join will provide a more competitive offering. Among Poland’s neighbors, Germany already has a qualified e-delivery service.

3. What about remote identity confirmation?

The recently growing scale of remote work requires the use of appropriate online identity verification methods. Obtaining proof of identity or issuing unqualified signatures without leaving home is no longer a problem.

Unfortunately, in the case of electronic qualified signatures, despite the relevant regulations at the European level, the lack of a proper law in the member states prevents their issuance in a fully digital process.

For example, in Poland we are still unable to perform remote verification using a video connection, while in Italy there is no problem with this and it complies with national regulations.

The functionality and efficiency of an electronic workflow requires all activity to be digital. It can be seen here that despite the homogeneous eIDAS Regulation, national implementations can vary widely.

4. Validation and maintenance – what we have been waiting for

Qualified validation is a service that confirms the authenticity of an electronic signature and electronic seal on a digital document, providing a guarantee that the document has not been altered.

Qualified maintenance, on the other hand, makes it possible to prolong the technical verification capabilities of electronic signatures and electronic seals, thereby ensuring their evidentiary (legal) value in the long term. The combination of these two services completes the entire lifecycle of an electronic document, starting from e-signature to archiving over a long period of time with complete security.

Although a qualified maintenance service is not yet available on the Polish market, the need for can be strongly felt and this gap will soon be filled.

5. Qualified certificate will stand firm

Among the many new electronic signature solutions, qualified solutions have stood their ground. In Poland and throughout the EU they are an alternative to the handwritten signature with the highest level of reliability. Last year, the number of qualified certificates in our country increased by nearly 20%.

In turn, global companies in the e-signature market, wanting to meet the requirements of the EU regulation on electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS), create or acquire local qualified certification centers in the European Union, e.g. the Dutch QuoVadis acquired by American Digicert. This demonstrates the enduring importance of qualified services.

6. Business will choose: an e-signature with long validity or for single use

With the growing popularity of advanced and qualified electronic signatures, the question of their validity period arises. Is it to be issued with a validity of several years, or maybe just for one-time use?

The option of on-the-fly signatures, which are used to sign a document once, is available on the market. This applies mainly to advanced signatures, but such a possibility is becoming increasingly common for qualified signatures as well.

We can observe a certain flexibility in the market, which on the one hand provides longer and longer validity periods for qualified certificates and on the other hand options to meet individual needs. This kind of personalization of solutions will be the key to the development of trust services, which will be transformed from heavily “boxed” offerings to “custom made” solutions.

7. The best combination – automation with a seal

When issuing electronic documents on a large scale, it is worth to use a qualified electronic seal. It is a fully automatic, human-free method of signing an e-document. Its application allows to achieve maximum optimization of document workflow and the resulting benefits for the organization.

Recently, there have been many examples in the Polish legislation where the existing available methods of electronic issuance of documents were supplemented with the e-seal, which is used, among others, to confirm the insured person’s data on documents from the Social Insurance Institution.

8. Even more widespread e-government

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The pandemic has “forced” governments to develop e-government. Countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands have it much easier, as the prevalence of e-identity systems there exceeds 80 and 90% respectively.

The Polish administration has a significant distance to make up with the leaders and will have to devote more effort to properly inform and encourage those citizens who are still attached to traditional offices, but the trend is promising. In January of this year, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that we have already reached the number of 9 million active trusted profiles. For the sake of comparison, this solution had 1.4 million users three years ago.

It is worth noting that the Polish administration has demonstrated the ability to adapt quickly to pandemic conditions. An example is the ability to set up a temporary trusted profile during a video call with an official.

Trust services in the longer term

The European Commission has taken up the issue of reviewing the eIDAS assumptions and launched a consultation in this regard last year. Given the context of the challenges during the pandemic, we can certainly assume that there will be changes to facilitate access to trust services while unifying the rules and providing appropriate security options later on.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility, approved this year by the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU Heads of State, can also have an impact on digital development, on a Europe-wide level. Its goal is to help repair the economic and social damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the pillars of the project is “digital transformation,” and by the end of April, individual member states are tasked with presenting a recovery plan within their country. The project provides the largest package of measures yet funded by the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild Europe’s economy after the COVID-19 crisis. The new Europe is to be greener, more digital and more resistant to crises.

Ewelina Chudy, Head of the Product Management Team