Legal Force of the Qualified Signature and Stamp
The Law of Georgia on Electronic Document and Electronic Trusted Services lays the foundation of any compliance assessment: a qualified electronic signature has legal force equal to a personal handwritten signature, while a qualified electronic stamp affords the possibility of confirming the integrity and origin of an electronic document — these are presumed reliable unless the contrary is proven.
In administrative relations the rule is concrete: where a natural person or a private-law legal person chooses the electronic form of communication with an administrative organ and the document to be submitted requires a signature and/or stamp, the affixing of a qualified electronic signature and/or stamp is mandatory. This rule does not apply to a non-resident person, nor where Georgian legislation does not require a signature or stamp on the document. The administrative organ, for its part, is obliged to affix a qualified electronic signature and/or stamp on an electronic document, and the affixing of the qualified stamp suffices. Between an organ's structural units the qualified signature is not mandatory.
The decisive guarantee: in administrative proceedings and court proceedings it is impermissible to reject an electronic document solely on the ground that it is submitted in electronic form, and even its evidentiary force may not be denied merely because it fails to satisfy the requirements for a qualified signature or stamp. Where private persons agree otherwise, the electronic document and signature carry force equal to a material document and a personal signature between them.
The Electronic Document — Original Status
The second axis of a compliance assessment is the document's status: every copy of an electronic document is an original, and an electronic document cannot have an electronic copy. An electronic document may be used in every case where a written material document is required, unless the law provides otherwise.
The regimes of printouts and copies are also precisely defined: a printout of an electronic document is a copy and has equal legal force if certified and/or confirmed by the person responsible for the signature or by an authorised person; an electronic copy of a material document has force equal to the original if likewise certified or confirmed with an electronic stamp.
Certificate Content and Provider Obligations
A qualified signature/stamp certificate must contain, at a minimum: an indication, suitable for electronic processing, that it is issued as a qualified certificate; data sufficient to identify the trust-services provider — at least the provider's name and the code of the country of registration; data sufficient to identify the signatory or the stamp affixer — at least a name and/or pseudonym or full denomination and an identification code; verification data corresponding to the creation data; the start and end dates of validity; an identification number unique to the provider; the electronic address of the service from which the certificate's status may be requested; and, where applicable, an indication that the creation data are placed in a qualified creation device. The certificate must bear the provider's advanced electronic signature or stamp.
The block of provider obligations is day-to-day: the provider identifies the certificate holder in accordance with the technical regulation; ensures the reliability of the recorded data; cancels, suspends and reactivates certificates where the law so provides; maintains a database of issued certificates; supplies certificate-status information to interested persons via the internet on a continuous basis; and retains certificates and related data and facts for at least 6 years from cancellation, with exact indication of the time — a requirement often decisive in court disputes.
Qualified Determination of Authenticity
The qualified determination of the authenticity of a signature or stamp proceeds through a complex of defined conditions: the signature must be based on a certificate at the moment of affixing; the certificate must have been issued by a qualified provider and be in force at the moment of use; the verification data must correspond to the data presented to the receiving party; the signatory's identification data must be exact; where a pseudonym is used, the receiving party must be notified; the signature must have been created by means of a qualified creation device; and the integrity of the signed data must be preserved. The determination is carried out by the provider itself, which supplies trusted information to the receiving party automatically, and the system used must inform about the satisfaction of the conditions and enable the detection of any data-security issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What force does a qualified electronic signature have?
Legal force equal to a personal signature; a qualified stamp reliably confirms the document's integrity and origin unless the contrary is proven.
May an electronic document be rejected because of its form?
No — rejection in administrative proceedings and in court solely on the ground of electronic form is impermissible; refusal is possible only for non-compliance with the rules of the given proceedings.
For how long are certificate data retained?
For at least 6 years from cancellation of the certificates, and in individual cases defined by the internal statutes — for more than 6 years, with exact indication of the time.
How is a signature's authenticity verified?
Through qualified determination: the certificate's validity, correspondence of verification data, creation by a qualified device and data integrity; information is delivered to the receiving party automatically.
How We Help on Legal.ge
The Legal.ge team assists with e-signature compliance assessment, certificate audits and disputes over the legal force of electronic documents. Write to us — we will assess your processes and plan compliance measures.