Electronic writing, signatures

[Nicholas Bohm]

The Law Commission has published its advice to the Government on the need
for reform of the law to accommodate electronic writing and electronic
signatures.

The document is called "ELECTRONIC COMMERCE: FORMAL REQUIREMENTS IN
COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS", and can be found at
http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/library/lib-com.htm

The Law Commission, to my surprise, conclude that even without the
Electronic Communications Act 2000 the law already recognises e-mail and
websites as being in writing within the usual statutory meaning, and
recognises typed names or the clicking of "sign now" buttons as signatures.
 The use of PKC or other technical methods for signatures affects the
weight to be given to the evidence in the case of a dispute, nothing more.

This is certainly what I always argued that the law ought to be (by analogy
with e.g. microfiche, where it seemed to me that there was no doubt that
what was on the fiche was writing even though I needed a machine to turn it
into text I could read), but I felt that lawyers were probably too
fuddy-duddy to accept that the ephemeral contents of a screen would count
as writing in the same way as "permanent" paper.

How nice to proved wrong.  Let's hope it's a good omen for the coming year.

Regards

Nicholas

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

Phone	01279 871272	(+44 1279 871272)
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