The EU’s eIDAS regulation, which entered into force on 1 July 2016, means that all EU countries (and the EEA countries Norway and Iceland) have common rules for secure electronic transactions and approve each other’s solutions for electronic identification and electronic signatures. Thus, the obstacles that the previous digital borders constituted have disappeared.
According to eIDAS and the e-Signature Act, a qualified electronic signature has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature. According to eIDAS and the e-Signature Act, a qualified electronic signature has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature. An electronic signature cannot be denied legal effect merely because it is in electronic form or because it is unqualified. What becomes decisive is the extent to which it is possible to prove the authenticity of the signature and the correctness of the content of the document.
The Swedish Post and Telecommunications Board, PTS, has supervisory responsibility for e-signature services and other trusted services according to eIDAS. Services for qualified e-signatures are under active supervision. Non-qualified services for advanced e-signatures are subject to supervision, which is carried out in the event of an incident. Providers of services at the qualified level are listed by the supervisory authorities within the EU/EEA.
