EU Draft Digital Signature Directive

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 11:56 AM 8/26/1998 +0100, Ian Johnson wrote:
[snip]
>Agreed, but surely you could contract with say your bank if
>they were willing on the basis of "my digital sig is your
>authorisation"?  Yes I realise there are complexities with
>repudiation etc., but surely it would be possible to agree
>a contract with your bank for them to accept your pgp-signed
>instructions as though they were written, signed instructions?
>Can anyone see any legal problems here?

There are none:  parties can contract to be bound by any procedure they wish.

>Is there is a market advantage here for any bank thats
>willing to take it?

I would think so.  But the snag is that you have to be very confident of
the security of your private key, because banks will insist it's at your
risk.  In theory you could insure, but that market is probably rather
immature at the moment (and it would be an awkward claim to prove).

	Regards,

		Nicholas Bohm

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
Takeley, Bishop's Stortford CM22 6SX, UK

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PGP RSA 1024 bit public key ID: 0x08340015.  Fingerprint:
9E 15 FB 2A 54 96 24 37  98 A2 E0 D1 34 13 48 07
PGP DSS/DH 1024/3072 public key ID: 0x899DD7FF.  Fingerprint:
5248 1320 B42E 84FC 1E8B  A9E6 0912 AE66 899D D7FF