The Legal Regime of the Digital Signature
The electronic signature is recognised in Georgia as an independent, fully-fledged legal institution. The current law defines the terminology, the legal force of signatures and stamps, and the authorisation procedure for providers of qualified trust services. Article 2 contains the definitions, Article 3 the legal force of the electronic signature and the electronic stamp, and Article 11 the authorisation of providers and the supervision of their activity. Knowing these three provisions is enough to understand when an electronic document constitutes full-fledged evidence before a court or an administrative body.
The law distinguishes the electronic signature from the electronic stamp: the signatory is a natural person who signs an electronic document electronically, while the stamp-maker is a legal person that places an electronic stamp on an electronic document. For the purposes of the law, a legal person also includes an administrative organ, an apartment owners' association, an unregistered association and a partnership. This distinction matters in practice because different verification rules and different legal effects attach to each form.
Types of Signature and Their Significance
The law differentiates the advanced and the qualified signature. An advanced electronic signature satisfies several requirements: it is linked solely to the signatory; the signatory can be identified through it; it is created using data that the signatory can use with a high level of confidence under sole control; and it is linked to the signed data in such a way that any subsequent change can be detected. These cumulative requirements are what elevate a technical mechanism into a legally meaningful signature.
A qualified electronic signature is a type of advanced signature created with a qualified creation device and on the basis of a qualified certificate. Qualified certificates are issued by an authorised provider of qualified trust services. An analogous hierarchy exists for the electronic stamp — advanced and qualified. The distinction is eminently practical: it is the qualified form that carries the highest legal effect, equivalent to a handwritten signature.
Legal Force — What Is and Is Not Permissible
A qualified electronic signature has legal force equal to a personal handwritten signature. A qualified electronic stamp, in turn, makes it possible to confirm the integrity and correctness of origin of an electronic document — integrity and origin are considered reliable unless the contrary is proven. This presumption allocates the burden of proof in disputes over electronic documents and is the central practical advantage of the qualified forms.
The law fixes clear prohibitions: during administrative proceedings and in court, it is impermissible to reject an electronic document solely on the ground that it is presented in electronic form. It is equally impermissible to refuse to attribute evidentiary force to a signature or stamp solely because it does not meet the requirements established for qualified forms. This does not, however, exclude rejecting a document that fails to satisfy the procedural rules of the given proceedings — form as such is not a ground, non-compliance with procedural requirements can be.