Digital Signature Law of the United Nations, European Union, United Kingdom and United States: Promotion of Growth in E-Commerce With Enhanced Security

Digital signatures enhance the ability of contracting parties to authenticate electronic communication. Sophisticated encryption and decryption technology is used to verify the identity of the other party to the electronic transaction. Digital signature law, necessary for adjudication of disputes between parties in e-commerce, is still in its infancy. This article covers basic digital signature law of the United Nations, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The United Nations’ Model Law of Electronic Commerce of 1996 (“MLEC”) had many implications. The MLEC approved the utilization of electronic signatures, stated that electronic signatures would have the same legal impact as an ink signature, and remained technologically-neutral, i.e., did not mandate the utilization of any specific type of technology. The admissibility of “advanced” electronic signatures in legal proceedings and seemed to favor the more sophisticated technologies such as public-key-infrastructure (“PKI”). Utilization of PKI would provide the ultimate in digital signature security. The United Kingdom enacted the Electronic Communications Act in 2000. The Act recognized the validity of electronic signatures and affirmed their admissibility as evidence in court. Furthermore, the United Kingdom’s Electronic Signatures Regulations went into force in 2002. The purpose of the regulations was to implement certain provisions of the European Union’s E-Signatures Directive. However, the United Kingdom remained technologically-neutral. In the 1990s, most states in the United States adopted some form of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, which mandates broad recognition of electronic signatures. In order to achieve more uniformity in the laws of the states, the United States. federal government enacted “E- Sign” in 2000, which preempted all existing state law unless it was the original form of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. Unfortunately, United States jurisdictions now have a “patchwork quilt” of dissimilar law regarding digital signatures. The United States is technologically-neutral. The article concludes with recommendations for improvement of digital signature laws

A Critique Of India\u27s Information Technology Act And Recommendations For Improvement

India\u27s Information Technology Act (/TA) recognizes the legal validity of £-documents, £-signatures and £-contracts, and also promotes £-government. £-documents are not allowed in wills, trusts, sales of real property, negotiable instruments and powers-of-attorney. An £-document may be used to satisfy a statutory requirement of writing; authentication; retention; publication; and governmental filing, issuance or payment. A digital signature complies with a statutory requirement for a handwritten signature to be affixed on paper. The /TA includes £-contract rules relating to: attribution, acknowledgement of receipt, and time and place of transmission and reception of an electronic message. Rules are provided for the regulation of Certification Authorities (CA) and third parties whose duty is to vouch for the authenticity and integrity of an electronic message that has been signed with a digital signature. Those rules are implemented by the Controller. India has adopted a compulsory system of CA licensing; no party may offer certification services without a license. A CA is mandated to: publicly display its license; issue certificates to successful applicants; and manage outstanding certificates by keeping the information in them current, and suspending or revoking them if they contain inaccuracies. A CA \u27s license may be suspended or revoked for good cause shown. Subscribers are responsible for ensuring that all information given to the CA is accurate and that all information contained in the certificate is correct. Ordinarily, network service providers have limited liability. The /TA includes civil and criminal offenses and related penalties. The Controller appoints adjudicating officers to hear both civil and criminal cases relating to the /TA and to render decisions accordingly. Appeal may be taken to the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal and eventually to the High Court. The federal government of India and the Controller are empowered to issue regulations necessary for implementation of the /TA. The objectives of this article are to: (1) introduce the reader to India\u27s economy and E-commerce activity; (2) explain the role of electronic signatures; (3) explain the role of the evolution of electronic signature law; (4) analyze India\u27s Information Technology Act (ITA); and ( 5) make recommendations for improvement of that statute

A Critique of Argentine E-Commerce Law and Recommendations for Improvement

Argentina has been experiencing rapid growth in internet accessibility and E-commerce, but its E-commerce laws need to be updated. The nation enacted a Digital Signature Law (“DSL”) in 2001. Digital signatures and documents are valid in Argentina if they meet stringent security requirements and can be used to comply with legal requirements for: a handwritten signature; a paper document; an original paper document; and retention of a paper document. A digital certificate must be issued by a licensed certification authority (“CA”) and must accurately identify the subscriber. The CA will issue a private key to the subscriber with the certificate, and the CA must revoke the certificate if security is compromised. CA’s are licensed and regulated by the federal government and may be audited and sanctioned for legal violations. CA’s may be responsible for damages incurred by third parties due to the CA’s acts or omissions. Exemplary attributes of this law include: (1) mandatory licensing of CA’s; (2) the rights and responsibilities of subscribers; (3) mandatory E-government with free CA service; and (4) the authorization of Registration Authorities to work for CA’s in the processing of applications for certificates. The DSL provides a satisfactory legal foundation for Argentine E-commerce, but it needs to be calibrated and supplemented. Recommended changes and additions to Argentine E-commerce law include: (1) enactment of a comprehensive Electronic Transactions Law which will incorporate all laws pertinent to E-commerce, including E-contract rules; (2) recognition of the validity of the electronic form in compliance with several additional requirements of other statutes, including notarization; (3) deletion of all exclusions from coverage, which will potentially allow E-signatures and E-documents to be used in all situations; (4) addition of rules for electronic automated contracts and electronic carriage contracts; (5) addition of consumer protections for E-buyers; (6) establishment of Information Technology Courts for resolution of E-commerce disputes; (7) creation of long-arm jurisdiction over foreign E-commerce parties; (8) licensing of the Argentine Post Office as a CA; (9) adoption of a National ID Card containing a digital signature which can be activated by a CA, including the Post Office; (10) enactment of computer crimes, including Intentional Injection of a Virus into a Computer System; and (11) enactment of a third-generation E-signature law to replace the first-generation DSL

Development of a Near Peer Clinical Anatomy Review Session during the Surgery Clerkship: Pre- and Post-Test Results among Third Year Medical Students

Introduction. The amount of time teaching anatomy during medical school has decreased. Our aim was to design a review of anatomy relevant to general surgery to increase third-year medical students’ confidence identifying anatomical structures in the operating room. Methods. A formalin-embalmed cadaver-based review of anatomy was created and taught in near-peer fashion to third-year medical students. An anonymous survey and anatomy test were administered to participants pre- and post-session. The survey and test were designed to evaluate anatomy knowledge as well as student confidence identifying structures in the operating room. Survey data were compared using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results. Seventy third-year medical students completed the anatomy review. There was a statistically significant improvement in students’ confidence levels (p < 0.001) identifying structures in the operating room and in anatomy test scores (p < 0.001). Subjectively, students were thankful for the review session and found it helpful. Conclusions. This near-peer review session designed at our institution was successful in improving immediate anatomy test scores and confidence levels identifying structures in the operating room

Invisible design: exploring insights and ideas through ambiguous film scenarios

Invisible Design is a technique for generating insights and ideas with workshop participants in the early stages of concept development. It involves the creation of ambiguous films in which characters discuss a technology that is not directly shown. The technique builds on previous work in HCI on scenarios, persona, theatre, film and ambiguity. The Invisible Design approach is illustrated with three examples from unrelated projects; Biometric Daemon, Panini and Smart Money. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of data from a series of workshops where these Invisible Designs were discussed. The analysis outlines responses to the films in terms of; existing problems, concerns with imagined technologies and design speculation. It is argued that Invisible Design can help to create a space for critical and creative dialogue during participatory concept development

Negotiating risk and responsibility through law, policy and planning

The 2011 National Strategy for Disaster Resilience (COAG 2011) sets the context for natural disaster management as a 'shared responsibility' of all sectors of government and society, as part of building a more comprehensive approach to emergency management. However, it remains difficult to change relationships and practices to share responsibility, either between emergency management agencies and other government sectors, or between governments and at-risk communities. This paper reports on the research of three independent but complementary projects established through the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre to identify the legal, policy and planning structures and processes that could enhance integration of emergency management imperatives across public policy sectors, agencies and portfolios. This article distils and summarises some key conclusions regarding a central, yet seriously under-acknowledged facet, of developing public policy for natural hazard risk in Australia: the political and social negotiation of risk and responsibility. This is an overview paper and many of the issues raised require further exploration

Teleradiology as a Foundation for an Enterprise-wide Health Care Delivery System

An effective, integrated telemedicine system has been developed that allows (a) teleconsultation between local primary health care providers (primary care physicians and general radiologists) and remote imaging subspecialists and (b) active patient participation related to his or her medical condition and patient education. The initial stage of system development was a traditional teleradiology consultation service between general radiologists and specialists; this established system was expanded to include primary care physicians and patients. The system was developed by using a well-defined process model, resulting in three integrated modules: a patient module, a primary health care provider module, and a specialist module. A middle agent layer enables tailoring and customization of the modules for each specific user type. Implementation by using Java and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture standard facilitates platform independence and interoperability. The system supports (a) teleconsultation between a local primary health care provider and an imaging subspecialist regardless of geographic location and (b) patient education and online scheduling. The developed system can potentially form a foundation for an enterprise-wide health care delivery system. In such a system, the role of radiologist specialists is enhanced from that of a diagnostician to the management of a patient’s process of care

A non-equilibrium neutral model for analysing cultural change

Neutral evolution is a frequently used model to analyse changes in frequencies of cultural variants over time. Variants are chosen to be copied according to their relative frequency and new variants are introduced by a process of random mutation. Here we present a non-equilibrium neutral model which accounts for temporally varying population sizes and mutation rates and makes it possible to analyse the cultural system under consideration at any point in time. This framework gives an indication whether observed changes in the frequency distributions of a set of cultural variants between two time points are consistent with the random copying hypothesis. We find that the likelihood of the existence of the observed assemblage at the end of the considered time period (expressed by the probability of the observed number of cultural variants present in the population during the whole period under neutral evolution) is a powerful indicator of departures from neutrality. Further, we study the effects of frequency-dependent selection on the evolutionary trajectories and present a case study of change in the decoration of pottery in early Neolithic Central Europe. Based on the framework developed we show that neutral evolution is not an adequate description of the observed changes in frequency