Category: eSeal

Results of the Remote Signature Survey 2023

Cloud, CSC, eID, eIDAS, eSeal, eSignature, ETSI, go.eIDAS, OASIS

As it is by now almost five years ago that the first version of ETSI TS 119 432 (“Protocols for remote digital signature creation”) was published, the experts from ETSI ESI, OASIS DSS-X, Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC) and go.eIDAS have joined forces in order to set up a short survey, which aimed at identifying existing implementations of ETSI TS 119 432 and providing an overview of existing Remote Signature services.

Note, that these services may play a crucial role within the practical implementation of the forthcoming Art. 6a (4) (ec) eIDAS2, which stipulates that the European Digitial Identity Wallet (EUDIW) shall offer the ability to create qualified electronic signatures free of charge for non-professional purposes.

Remote Signature Survey 2023

This survey has been carried out in the last quarter of 2023 and was answered by 30 organisations listed below, among almost all provide Remote Signature services.

The main results of the survey may be summarised as follows:

  • 17 % (5) of the Remote Signature Services are compliant to ETSI TS 119 432 v1.2.1, whereas 13 % (4) have chosen to implement the variant based on the CSC-API and 3 % (1) is based on the OASIS-API.
  • 60 % (18) of the Remote Signature Services provide an API, which is similar to the ETSI-API, whereas 47 % (14) are based on the CSC-API, 7 % (2) are based on the OASIS-API and 7% (2) are based on some other API. Note, that several respondents, which support the CSC-variant, have indicated that they are supporting version 0.4.0 or even 2.0.0.2 of this specification, while ETSI 119 432 v1.2.1 is refering to version 1.0.3.0 of the CSC-API-specification and hence ETSI TS 119 432 may need to be updated accordingly.
  • 3 % (1) of the Remote Signature Service providers plan to support the ETSI-API in the near future and
  • 20 % (6) do not plan to support a standardised API at all.

Remote Signature Survey Result

While almost all participants in the survey prefer to keep pricing information confidential, there were some figures provided: One respondent indicated a price of 120 € per year for qualified electronic signatures and 400 € for advanced electronic seals. Another respondent mentioned a monthly fee of 200 € for accessing the remote signature interface. Yet another respondent mentioned a range from 0 to 0,50 € per advanced electronic signature and 0 to 2,50 € per qualified electronic signature. Sample costs for identification have been provided for 2,50 € with eID, 7,50 € with VideoIdent and 3,50 € with AutoIdent. Only one respondent shared a price list for remote signature services, which is based on transaction fees and a minimum number of transactions, but this pricing is only valid in selected EU Member States.

We thank the following organisations for participating in the survey:

eIDAS-Signer launched

Digital Sovereignty, eID, eIDAS, eSeal, eSignature, go.eIDAS, mGov4EU

The EU-funded mGov4EU project follows a citizen-centric approach to enable secure and privacy-friendly mobile government services across Europe. Among the project results is the novel eIDAS-Signer service (https://Signer.eID.AS), which allows to use electronic identification (eID) means, such as the German eID or ID Austria, for the creation of advanced or qualified electronic signatures in a mobile environment.

There are currently 32 (pre-) notified eID-Schemes in Europe. Furthermore there are currently 260 Qualified Trust Service Providers (QTSPs), among which 189 issue qualified certificates for electronic signature purposes. Against this background the mGov4EU project has assembled leading European experts from government, business and science located in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Germany, and Spain in order to design the next generation service infrastructure for Europe and develop innovative services on this basis.

This especially bridges the gap between the “eID” part and the “AS” (trust services) part of the eIDAS regulation in order to enable trustworthy, mobile and citizen-centric electronic business and cross-border government processes all over Europe.

mGov4EU bridges the gap between eID and AS for mobile citizen

An important result of the mGov4EU project is the novel and community-driven eIDAS-Signer service, which is available at https://Signer.eID.AS and allows to create advanced or qualified electronic signatures after suitable electronic identification processes in a mobile environment.

Welcome to the eIDAS-Signer

The eIDAS-Signer service has been co-designed with a variety of experts within the open eIDAS community, assembled around the non-profit go.eIDAS e.V., and has been developed and is operated by ecsec GmbH in a certified environment to provide an easy to use and SME-suitable alternative to already existing, but purely commercially oriented offerings, which are typically provided by multi-national enterprises.

While the eIDAS-Signer service currently only supports ID Austria and the German eID, it is an obvious goal to support the other notified eID-Schemes and more QTSPs as depicted below.

Please feel free to reach out to the open eIDAS community to get support, suggest improvements or new features as well as priorities for further development.

We gratefully acknowledge that the eIDAS-Signer builds upon components and services, which have been developed within research projects supported by the European Commission (FutureTrust and mGov4EU) and the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (SkIDentity and TEAM-X).