Belgian citizens will be able to digitally sign PDFs using their government-issued electronic ID cards.In a move that ultimately could have implications stateside, Adobe Systems Inc. has joined with the country of Belgium to promote use of digital signatures for authenticating PDFs.
Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen and Peter Vanvelthoven, Belgium's Secretary of State for IT, last week held a press conference to demonstrate how Belgian citizens can sign Adobe PDF forms using the country's new electronic ID card.
Belgium aims to distribute the eID cards to more than 3 million citizens by the end of 2005 to replace passports.
Adobe and Belgium are using the eID cards to enable citizens and businesses to use digital signatures to address document security requirements, provide improved document integrity and authenticity, and to move the paper-based workflow online securely and efficiently, according to Adobe.
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John Landwehr, Adobe's director of security solutions and strategy, said the rollout of smart cards with PKI digital certificates on them will enable the replacement of wet ink signatures and provide an authentication method that is secure and viable for years to come.
"For digital signatures, you have to have a PKI signature to have this work," said Landwehr. "By utilizing a smart card like the eID, all the citizen does is open the document in the free Adobe Reader, insert their eID in the smart-card reader provided, enter their pin code, and they're done."
This process then binds the signature to the document in perpetuity. Landwehr said the eID authentication is more effective than a paper-based process at thwarting misrepresentation fraud.
"The privacy of the cardholder is significantly increased because the identity is protected," he said. "You have to have the card and the pin code to the card and that cuts down on the possibility of fraud in the same way a bank card would. This also saves money in printing and storage and increases the immediacy with which documents can be routed to others if necessary."
Landwehr said it's only a matter of time before smart-card usage and digital signature capability will reach all business sectors in the United States.
"In Europe, smart card usage and digital signature usage has been more advanced than [in the United States], and that's going to start spilling over. For instance, in the U.S. Department of Defense, they have the common access card and the follow-on driven by the Homeland Security Act, which calls for a standard ID for all employees.
"We're starting to see more smart cards ship in the government, financial and pharmaceutical companies sectors. Adobe wants to make it easier for everyone to digitally sign PDF documents," Landwehr said.
Landwehr noted the Federal Information Processing Standard 201, FIPS 201, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology under the Personal Identity Verification Plan, calls for all federal employees and contractors to have a secure, unified and reliable form of identification.
FIPS 201 was formulated in response to the Homeland Security Presidential Directive issued in August 2004, which called for a mandatory, governmentwide ID standard for federal employees and contractors.
Part of the FIPS 201 specification includes provisions for digital signature capability, Landwehr said, which would allow anyone who has the standard ID card to digitally sign Adobe PDFs.
As privacy and fraud issues rise in the United States, will this tide toward digital signatures as opposed to wet ink continue to grow stronger? Privacy expert Dr. Larry Ponemon of Tucson, Ariz.-based Ponemon Institute thinks it will.
"Digital signature technologies have been in the data security marketplace
for several years. Despite all the hype about this form of certification,
adoption in the private and public sectors has been relatively slow and
insignificant. I believe that this is all about to change," Ponemon said.
"The rash of notable data security breaches, growing fear about identity theft, and improvements in smart ID card devices, will make digital signature certification a very important method for verifying and authenticating documents and individuals. The fact
that a company like Adobe is involved is big news because this increases acceptance and, hence, widespread adoption."
Landwehr said Adobe will continue its support toward enabling widespread adoption of the digital signature capability in both Europe and the United States.
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