keyboard_tab EIDAS 2014/0910 EN

(1) Building trust in the online environment is key to economic and social development.

  Lack of trust, in particular because of a perceived lack of legal certainty, makes consumers, businesses and public authorities hesitate to carry out transactions electronically and to adopt new services.

(2) This Regulation seeks to enhance trust in electronic transactions in the internal market by providing a common foundation for secure electronic interaction between citizens, businesses and public authorities, thereby increasing the effectiveness of public and private online services, electronic business and electronic commerce in the Union.

(3) Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (3), dealt with electronic_signatures without delivering a comprehensive cross-border and cross-sector framework for secure, trustworthy and easy-to-use electronic transactions.

  This Regulation enhances and expands the acquis of that Directive.

(7) The European Parliament, in its resolution of 21 September 2010 on completing the internal market for e-commerce (4), stressed the importance of the security of electronic services, especially of electronic_signatures, and of the need to create a public key infrastructure at pan-European level, and called on the Commission to set up a European validation authorities gateway to ensure the cross-border interoperability of electronic_signatures and to increase the security of transactions carried out using the internet.

(9) In most cases, citizens cannot use their electronic_identification to authenticate themselves in another Member State because the national electronic_identification schemes in their country are not recognised in other Member States.

  That electronic barrier excludes service providers from enjoying the full benefits of the internal market.

  Mutually recognised electronic_identification means will facilitate cross-border provision of numerous services in the internal market and enable businesses to operate on a cross-border basis without facing many obstacles in interactions with public authorities.

(17) Member States should encourage the private sector to voluntarily use electronic_identification means under a notified scheme for identification purposes when needed for online services or electronic transactions.

  The possibility to use such electronic_identification means would enable the private sector to rely on electronic_identification and authentication already largely used in many Member States at least for public services and to make it easier for businesses and citizens to access their online services across borders.

  In order to facilitate the use of such electronic_identification means across borders by the private sector, the authentication possibility provided by any Member State should be available to private sector relying parties established outside of the territory of that Member State under the same conditions as applied to private sector relying parties established within that Member State.

  Consequently, with regard to private sector relying parties, the notifying Member State may define terms of access to the authentication means.

  Such terms of access may inform whether the authentication means related to the notified scheme is presently available to private sector relying parties.

(45) In order to allow an efficient initiation process, which should lead to the inclusion of qualified trust_service providers and the qualified trust_services they provide into trusted lists, preliminary interactions between prospective qualified trust_service providers and the competent supervisory body should be encouraged with a view to facilitating the due diligence leading to the provisioning of qualified trust_services.

(63) Electronic documents are important for further development of cross-border electronic transactions in the internal market.

  This Regulation should establish the principle that an electronic_document should not be denied legal effect on the grounds that it is in an electronic form in order to ensure that an electronic transaction will not be rejected only on the grounds that a document is in electronic form.