What are Electronic Trust Services?
The exponential increase in electronic transactions requires the establishment of security standards to protect any online activity and the identity of users. This has led to the establishment of electronic trust services.
The world is rapidly moving towards a completely digital model, that requires guarantees like, data integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity of exchanged and archived documents.
Therefore, a regulation establishing a legal framework that ensures secure interactions between citizens, companies, and public administrations has been developed.
What are Trust Services
Trust services are electronic services that include the methods for creation, verification and validation of electronic invoices, digital signatures, time stamps, certified electronic delivery, and web site authentication certificates, as well as their preservation.
Let’s see what they consist of.
Digital Signature
Data in digital format logically associated to other electronic data that a user uses to sign.
Digital Seal
Data in a digital format logically associated to other electronic data to guarantee its origin and integrity.
Time Stamp
The guarantee that information in a document has not been altered from the moment the seal was generated.
Certified Electronic Delivery
Gives evidence related to the management of electronic documents interchanged by two or more parties, for example in the case of deliveries and receptions.
Website Authentication Certificate
The guarantee that a website is authenticated and linked to a physical or legal person that has issued the certificate.
The figure of the Electronic Trust Services Provider as the physical or legal person that holds the required certifications and technical capacity to give electronic transactions was created to apply the mentioned trust services to electronic transactions.
Advantages of Trust Services for Companies
The primary benefactors of these services are companies that need to guarantee information security in electronic transactions, publicly and privately and that enable business activities with legal safeguards.
Electronic trust services certified document transactions and enable the identification of the persons who use them.
Any of the trust services can be included in the administrative management of any company, improving the client experience, and also optimizing those processes.
These kinds of services enable companies to digitalize processes that are traditionally conducted through other means, improving operations, and saving resources.
EDICOM as a Global Provider of Trust Services
EDICOM has international certifications for trust services and guarantees the interchange of electronic content confidentially, securely and also guaranteeing integrity.
Certification Authority in Europe
European eIDAS regulation 910/2014 regulates electronic trust services for digital transactions in the European Union’s internal market.
It also establishes the conditions that must be met for the suppliers of these services.
EDICOM is a qualified trust service provider in Europe that conforms to the European regulation and is authorized to operate in all European member states.
If a European company conducts commercial operations outside of the European Union EDICOM will obtain the equivalent official recognition as a trust services provider.
Trust Services Provider in Mexico
EDICOM is also a certification authority in Mexico which enables it to offer secure electronic identification services for any activity where electronic signatures substitute handwritten ones with legal validity.
By holding the ACEDICOM MX certification EDICOM is certified to issue certificates that comply with the rules established in the commercial code regarding electronic signatures.
EDICOM’s solutions guarantee the exchange of electronic messages securely, confidentially and with complete integrity.
EDICOM operates as a certification services provider (PSC) thanks to the accreditations by the Mexican Secretariat of the Economy.
Certification Authority in Colombia
EDICOM is a Digital Certification Entity, accredited by the National Accreditation Organism of Colombia (ONAC). This enable EDICOM to offer digital signature services with complete legal guarantees when substituting written signatures.
Thanks to this official certification EDICOM can issue electronic certificates and time stamps, as well as provide document archiving and other complementary services.
The Importance of Electronic Trust Services
Electronic trust services give security and dependability to electronic document transactions and can even give the document legal validity.
They can ensure that a document has not been modified after the digital signature has been applied. They also confirm the date and time that an action related to the transmitted information was performed, or that the digital signature was used by the correct person.
The enable companies and individuals to guarantee key aspects related to the interchange of digital information and give legal security with probative value to documents in a legal action.
These services are not only important for security matters, but they also give operational advantages to companies.
Electronic trust services help companies achieve better efficiency by optimizing their processes. They also imply cost reduction through the automation of tedious and repetitive tasks.
Online transactions also have a smaller environmental impact than traditional physical documents since there is no need to print them.
The digital transformation of the economy was already evident years ago, but now, with the Covid-19 pandemic it has accelerated and reached the forefront.
Today more than ever, because of the high volume of remote transactions Electronic Trust Services require a higher level of security for all digital document transactions.
