Yerevan /Mediamax/. Attracting international centers for attestation of electronic signature, or establishing those by the efforts of the local business, will become an important step to secure adequacy of electronic document circulation in Armenia and will contribute to development of electronic society in Armenia.

Head of Information Technology Development Department of the Ministry of Economy of Armenia Zhenya Azizyan informed on this in an interview to Mediamax.

The necessary legislative base has been functioning in Armenia since 2005 – the main part is played by the law on electronic documents and electronic digital signature, which does not provide for limitations as to the residency of attesting centers.

A number of banking and other private organizations already use electronic signature in the internal electronic network for document circulation. By the decision of the government of Armenia, the Ministry of Economy is to be the accrediting body for attestation centers. The above-mentioned accreditation is compulsory under the current legislation to use electronic signature in governmental bodies.

In 2008, by the decree of the government, the criteria were also defined and the corresponding standards of electronic signature were localized for governmental establishments and departments, meeting international ISO/IEC standards.

However, according to Zhenya Azizyan, the private sector does not yet demonstrate interest to provide services of electronic signature, which, probably, is conditioned both by insufficient level of information and absence of assessments on electronic signature attestation markets. She informed that steps are taken to attract foreign organizations, specializing in attestation of electronic signature, to the Armenian market.

The presence of certificates, evidencing conformity of electronic signature, program means generating the latter and adjacent services to the terms, approved by the Armenian government, can be considered a basis for accrediting attestation centers, if the conformity certificates are provided by local or international certification bodies, recognized by the authorized body.

Zhenya Azizyan expressed confidence that already next year serious progress will be marked in implementation of electronic signature in electronic document circulation.

The full-scale implementation of electronic documentation will in its turn accelerate the tendency of excluding seals, as an essential element of document attestation.