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Specialist Task Force 305:
Procedures for the handling of Advanced Electronic Signatures On Digital Accounting (SODA)

Who we are:

STF Team Leader : Nick Pope
Team Members : Sylvie Camus
Juan Carlos Cruellas
Stefan Engel-Flechsig
Franco Ruggieri

What we do:

The STF will produce the following deliverables, for TB approval:

DTR/ESI-000046 Technical Report on best practice for handling signatures and signed data relevant for accounting
DTS/ESI-000047 Technical Specification on policies of TSPs signing and/or storing data relevant for accounting

Download most recent drafts :
DTR/ESI-000046-09
DTS/ESI-000047-02

Read our Terms of Reference

Why we do it:

National governments regulate digital accounting on the basis of assumptions on the trustworthiness of electronic signatures and of data format(s).

If the electronic signature is used to make digital accounting data unmodifiable, it can provide (under certain circumstances) a documentation support even more trustworthy and resilient then easy-to-shred paper.

Moreover it has become clear that all successful use-cases for electronic signatures are currently not in order to support the binding declaration of will (signing contracts), but in order to authenticate the origin of legally relevant documentation and in order to make it unforgeable.

It has become also clear that the technical format of the data to be signed and the process of the signature creation are of greatest importance for data authentication.
In this context electronic invoicing and paperless accounting are very significant use-cases. A wider adoption of e-Invoicing is currently delayed by two factors:

a) lack of signature verification interoperability within the EU 25 Member States;
b) need (in some of the EU 25 Member States, to keep accounting on paper.

European enterprises are extremely keen on e-Invoicing and digital accounting, because it can reduce significantly administrative costs (up to 95% of the current accounting costs). Also auditing procedures can highly benefit of the availability of electronic Invoices and of digital accounting data.

Anyway different national technical regulations can significantly delay interoperability of digitally signed accounting data, so that a technical report on how to provide digital accounting data with a qualified or an advanced signature, is needed in order to avoid barriers to the adoption and the diffusion of electronic signatures.

Time plan for the work:

We intend to complete our work by March 2007. 

How to contact us:

If you would like more information, please contact the STF Leader : nickpope@secstan.com

Note: this information is based upon STF working assumptions.
The views expressed do not necessarily represent the position of ETSI in this context.

Last updated: 2013-04-13 17:28:38