ASD-X

The Signature Revolution: From Ink to Secure Digital Trust

Digital signatures (eIDAS, QES) offer efficiency, security, and mobility over wet ink; Gaia-X ensures their trustworthy EU framework.

The digital signature (especially the Qualified Electronic Signature, QES) offers a number of significant advantages over the traditional wet signature, for both companies and private individuals: Efficiency and time savings

  • • Instant transmission: Documents can be signed and sent digitally in seconds, instead of being printed, signed, scanned or sent by post.
  • • No logistics: Waiting times due to postal routes or courier services are eliminated.
  • • Automated workflows: The signature process can be integrated into existing digital processes and software, which reduces manual steps.
Cost savings
  • • Reduced material costs: Savings on paper, ink, printers and physical storage space (filing cabinets).
  • • Lower shipping costs: Postage and courier costs are eliminated.
Flexibility and mobility
  • • Location-independent: Documents can be signed from anywhere in the world, as long as an internet connection exists (e.g. in a home office or on business trips).
  • • Device-independent: The signature can be made via computers, tablets or smartphones.
Security and legal certainty
  • • High tamper resistance: Digital signatures use cryptographic methods that make manipulations to the document after the signature immediately recognizable.
  • • Provability: The QES is legally equivalent to the handwritten signature and offers the highest probative value in court.
  • • Audit-proof archiving: Digital documents are easier and more secure to archive than physical files.
Environmental friendliness
  • • Sustainability: The reduction of paper consumption helps to conserve natural resources and supports sustainability goals.

Gaia-X in Context

The Gaia-X initiative offers the added value of trustworthiness, interoperability and digital sovereignty at a European level in the context of digital signatures and electronic identities. Specifically, Gaia-X supports this area through:

  • • Trustworthy identities: Gaia-X creates a framework for secure, self-sovereign digital identities (Self-Sovereign Identity, SSI). These identities are the basis for the issuance and use of qualified electronic signatures (QES).

  • • Interoperable infrastructure: The initiative aims to create a networked and interoperable data infrastructure. This means that digital signatures and identity documents function seamlessly across various platforms and services, without depending on proprietary solutions from individual large tech corporations.

  • • Strengthening the eIDAS regulation: Gaia-X supports the implementation and acceptance of the EU-wide eIDAS regulation by providing the technical foundations for the digital infrastructure. In particular, the introduction of the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet), which is based on the principles of Gaia-X, will massively simplify the use of legally valid electronic signatures in everyday life.

  • • Data sovereignty: The core goal of Gaia-X is to ensure European values such as data protection and data sovereignty. Users retain control over which data they share with whom. This creates the necessary trust in digital signature processes, which is essential for acceptance.

  • • Standards for trust services: Gaia-X sets common rules and standards for cloud services and data spaces. These standards ensure that the trust services necessary for digital signatures (such as certification authorities) meet the high European security and legal requirements.

In summary, it can be said that Gaia-X creates the framework for a secure digital ecosystem in which digital signatures not only function technically, but also enjoy the full trust of users and are in line with European values.

#Gaia-X #QES #eIDAS