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Federal Legislation Before Congress | 28
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Digital Signatures
Federal Legislation Before Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C.
 
Although relatively new to the landscape architectural profession, current federal digital signature legislation under consideration in Congress would facilitate the reduction of paperwork in the government approval process, and would enable practitioners to send plans electronically to clients and government agencies. Photo provided courtesy of DMW, Inc.
 
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) has praised the recent introduction of legislation in the U.S. Senate that would facilitate the use of electronic forms in government, and would give digital signatures the same legal recognition as written signatures. S. 2107, or the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) is companion legislation to HR 2991, The Electronic Commerce Enhancement Act. "This legislation is an important milestone on the road to a vibrant electronic commerce marketplace," explained ITAA President Harris Miller. "We view the bill as a critical component to the widespread adoption of electronic authentication."

The digital signature is an encryption and decryption process allowing both the positive identification of the author of an electronic message (Who wrote the message?), and the verification of integrity of the message (Has the message been tampered with during transmission?). Digital signature is based on the public key encryption system. In the system, the author of a message keeps his/her private key secret, and publishes the message with a corresponding public key. Text encrypted with a private key can be decrypted with the public key, and vice versa. However, the knowledge of the public key is not sufficient to deduce the private key, so the holder of a public key cannot pretend to be the holder of the corresponding private key. The identity of the owner of the public key is asserted by a digital certificate, issued by a Certificate Authority trusted both by the author and the recipient of electronic messages.

Although familiar with the digital signature process, Landscape Architect Andrew Spurlock, RLA of San Diego, CA-based Spurlock Martin Poirier Associates explains that his firm does not currently use the digital stamp, "It is still a relatively new procedure; I imagine that sometime in the near future we will adopt the process."

Ten states across the country have Digital Signature Laws in effect (CA, FL, IN, NV, NM, OR, RI, UT, VT, and WA). Currently, GA, IL and MA are drafting their own state laws. LASN will keep readers informed of the progress of both the state and federal legislation.
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