Proven new security technologies can now be treated as comparable to PKI in ensuring the reliability and security of authentication services.

The Electronic Transactions Act (ETA) has been re-enacted as of 1 July 2010 to harmonise Singapore’s laws on electronic transactions with international developments, facilitate more effective delivery of e-Government services and enhance technology neutrality so that Singapore can better respond to the changing and continued developments in security technology.

Singapore was one of the first countries in the world to introduce legislation to enable electronic commerce, when the ETA was enacted in 1998.  With the revised ETA, which included changes to align the Act with the United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (UN Convention), Singapore became the first country in Asia to ratify the UN Convention after a ratification ceremony in New York on 7 July 2010. This revised ETA “is of strategic importance given the increasing use of the electronic medium for communications and transactions, and substantial growth in global e-commerce trade,” said Mr Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, in the second reading on the Electronic Transactions Bill 2010 on 19 May 2010.

Aligning ETA with the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts
Under the amendments, provisions in the ETA, such as those responsible for defining the time and place of dispatch of an electronic communication, follow the UN Convention, an updated international legal framework for e-commerce that is developed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

New provisions that were added include rules on the use of automated programs in the formation of contracts, use of electronic originals in place of the physical originals, and clarifications on the rules in a formation of an electronic contract.

“By harmonising our laws on e-commerce with the UN Convention, businesses in Singapore will not be subjected to different standards for domestic and international transactions,” said Mr Lui. “This prevents any complication arising from different definitions and conventions between local and cross-border electronic transactions.”

Facilitating effective delivery of e-Government services
The second set of amendments to the ETA clarifies that during transactions with public agencies, information can be submitted using electronic forms in the manner specified by the agencies, even if these forms do not resemble the physical prescribed forms required for the transactions.

These amendments provide flexibility for public agencies to design electronic forms suited for online transactions, and hence improve the customer’s overall e-Government experience. For example, public agencies can create integrated electronic forms to facilitate a user’s performance of multiple e-Government transactions from a single point of access. Using the integrated electronic form, the user needs to input his relevant information just once, instead of having to fill in the same information repeatedly in the multiple forms for the different e-Government transactions he is performing.

Under the ETA amendments, Government agencies will also, by default, accept the retention or provision of the required documents in their electronic form. There are also provisions to allow Government agencies to specify additional requirements for the retention or provision of electronic records and originals. However, certain classes of documents and transactions, such as wills and the conveyance of properties, will continue to be excluded from the ETA.

Enhancing the technology neutrality of the ETA
The third set of amendments focus on the regulatory framework for Certification Authorities (CAs) and is aimed at enhancing the technology neutrality of the ETA. Under the original ETA, the CA regulatory framework was largely based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology, which was one of the most secure authentication architectures at the time.

“Since then, however, new security technologies and solutions have emerged, and changed the authentication and security landscape both in Singapore and globally”, said Mr Lui. Some of these new technologies like biometrics have begun to be adopted, as they have been found to be appropriate alternatives to PKI. To keep pace with these industry developments, PKI-specific references have been removed from the main text of the ETA and moved into an attached Schedule.

The effect of these proposed amendments is that proven new security technologies can now be treated as comparable to PKI in ensuring the reliability and security of authentication services. However, there will be no dilution in the regulatory controls that have been put in place to govern CAs in Singapore.

Mr Lui said with these amendments, the ETA will continue to fulfill its fundamental role of providing a conducive legal framework for electronic transactions to take place in Singapore. “In doing so, we can facilitate the continual growth of electronic commerce (or e-commerce for short), electronic communications and electronic transactions, hence strengthening Singapore’s position as a trusted global infocomm hub.”

For more information on the ETA, please refer to www.ida.gov.sg

For more information on the UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, please refer to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts’ press release here: www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/mica-ccd/press_release/P-20100708-1