eIDAS2 and AdES Will Change Our Digital World And Break Down The Barriers of the Past

I must applaud the EU for driving forward digital signing and digital identity in a way that no other region of the world has managed. Why? Because it wants to break down the barriers of the past between different countries and further support the harmonisation of markets and reduce friction to the freedom of movement. A core part of this is the adoption of the e-ID system across the EU, and where every business and citizen will have an electronic identity. While this does not differ that much from the normal identities we are given, the real magic happens when we can use this identity to digitally sign for transactions. This will finally replace our flawed wet signature approaches.

Overall, with eIDAS, we break down of the barriers that restrict movement and economic development over borders and finally give digital signature its place as the foundation of our digital world. Article 25 of the eIDAS regulation [1] defines:

‘an advanced electronic signature shall “not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings”.

Overall, with a digital signature, Bob creates a key pair: a public key and a private key. He then takes a hash of a message, and signs this with his private key. Alice then proves the signature with his public…