Many people wonder why PKI technology, with a very well-developed business model in the form of an electronic signature, cannot achieve market success. Despite large capital expenditures on the infrastructure of providers, which are Certification Authorities (CA), and the construction of legal tools along with a strict mandatory system (provisions in the Act forcing the use of an electronic signature), there are still no signs of movement even in the individual consumer sector. European Union aid proved ineffective – the electronic signature is a problem there as well. The whole world made the same mistake – in the pursuit of ultra-modernity, it outpaced itself. They started to “build a house from the roof, which, although nice and strong, will not hold up in the air”. The fundamental mistake was developing a model for applications that were only being planned and expecting that the introduced solution would trigger an electronic revolution in the economy, aimed at completely replacing paper documents with electronic ones. The seemingly obvious fact did not happen. Costs, lack of standards, misunderstanding of security issues, flawed legislation, and finally cheap and uncomplicated substitute technologies – effectively hinder the implementation of the electronic signature.
Gadget signature
The most serious drawbacks of the electronic signature in Poland include the lack of the so-called second party – a person or institution accepting our document in electronic version. With few exceptions, no public administration institution or company is adapted to receive fully electronic correspondence. This is because, although the electronic signature is sanctioned in Poland, there is still no electronic document well-defined by law. In such a situation, the electronic signature remains merely an interesting gadget, which – and this is also a serious drawback – is quite expensive. Several dozen or several hundred zlotys a year for the awareness of passive participation in civilizational transformation is definitely too much for a mass customer. Another problem – purely technical – is that the electronic signature requires having a pair of keys and a certificate. These are strings of bits that must be stored somewhere and read in some way.
The article comes from the magazine “e-Fakty” 2/2004.
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