Electronic commerce will effectively become operational in Romania in Q3, this year, once the due legal framework is out, IT&C minister Dan Nica estimates.
He hopes the President will promulgate the first of the e-business essential laws, the electronic signature law, in a matter of days.
Romanians will be able to electronically sign transactions when the electronic ID certificates are released. Such documents, which are the IT equivalent of the “classical” paper ID card, will be issued by at least five organisations or companies to be licensed by the Communications Ministry, Nica said.
Any company planning to participate in the licensing procedure will have to come up with at least 500,000 euros in budget and a three-year business plan. The electronic ID certificates issued by the authorised companies will be valid for three years.
The organisations licensed to issue electronic ID certificates will be engaged in a fierce competition, Alexandru Panoiu, Compaq Romania official, feels, because each of them would normally want to gain the confidence of as many users as possible.
Such companies will not survive on the market unless they enjoy enough credibility among consumers.
For instance, an e-mail message with an electronic signature will be read by the recipient only if they use the ID certificate system of the same organisation or if they trust the one chosen by the sender’s company.
If one of the electronic certification companies is not considered credible, the message is returned unread and the deal is not closed.
The norms and regulations of the electronic signature and electronic commerce laws are being drafted, “by the IT industry representatives and by the civil society,” IT&C minister Dan Nica told the seminar held in Mamaia between July 3-4 and organised in co-operation with Compaq Computer Romania.
The regulations and norms for the electronic signature and electronic commerce laws will be enforceable in no more than a week after their validation.
The extended electronic signature is defined by the law as “that electronic signature compliant with every of the following conditions: it is connected to the signatory only, ensures the positive identification of the signatory, it is created by means solely controlled by the signatory and is connected to the electronic data to which it relates, so that any further modification of the data in question can be identified.” It will be based on ID certificates.