Brief Report on EESSI Meeting

Last week I attended a meeting of EESSI [1] regarding: "Electronic Signature 
Standardisation: The International dimension". The purpose of this meeting 
was general introductions/coordination among various organizations, but the 
immediate technical question before EESSI is the provision of a suite of 
specifications (standardized at ETSI/CEN/IETF) that satisfy the EU 
Directive's definition of "qualified electronic signature". Much of these 
constituent specifications are obviously based on pre-existing standards; 
the Signature Format specification is ETSI ES 201 733 [2].

Given the interest in XML and XML Signature, ETSI is interested in 
harmonizing this work with XML. Consequently, I gave a brief introduction of 
XML Signature.  My hope is that XML Signature could be used as part of a 
qualified electronic signature. Fortunately, this question doesn't affect 
XML Signature deliverables; it's part of one of many "bigger picture" 
questions that aren't in the scope of this WG but for which many of the WG 
participants are interested. If you are interested in this issue, I 
recommend following the work of the ETSI WG. Also, Rigo Wenning, a W3C staff 
member who is following this work, is willing to address any questions you 
have.

[1] 
http://www.ict.etsi.fr/eessi/Open-Seminar-Autumn2000/Presentations/Barcelona-Presentations.htm
[2] Linked from http://www.etsi.org/sec/el-sign.htm

__
Joseph Reagle Jr.
W3C Policy Analyst                mailto:reagle@w3.org
IETF/W3C XML-Signature Co-Chair   http://www.w3.org/People/Reagle/

Received on Monday, 2 October 2000 13:31:56 UTC