OF THE LAW SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND - The Journal Online

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS SOME PKI
... I think
IMAGINE
a world where your Practising Certificate is abolished, and to be a solicitor
you need to have a Smart Card, which can be used to electronically lock
documents and prove you are who you claim you are.You think this couldn’t happen in Scotland?
It has already happened in other countries. It should happen here. It could happen here inside twelve
months if people wanted it to. But ours is a profession that has a long-term love affair with pen and paper.
The purpose of this article is to demystify digital “signatures”.
In the paper world millions of paper documents are
exchanged daily via Legal Post, Royal Mail, DX and so on.
Why? You accept paper-based instructions because you
are conditioned to make an indirect and subconscious
assessment of the:
● Headed notepaper
● Style & Signature
● Presentation and other features
● Trustworthiness of the sender
If the envelope is sealed, you assume the contents are
still intact and confidential.
All this happens instantly as the document is opened,
read and interpreted. Doubts can be resolved with
comparison to previous documents, the signature can
be compared to a known predecessor or a confirmation
phone call could be made to the sender.You could even
personally visit the offices of the sender to confirm: but
who has ever done that? If the integrity of the packaging
has been compromised or is suspect the recipient can
immediately alert the sender.
It can be argued that in the electronic, e-mail world this
comfort factor is less easy, and less intuitive to grasp.
Because –
● There may be no opportunity nor time
to meet
● Instructions may come from someone you
don’t know
● There is no damaged packaging to alert you
to hacking and lack of confidentiality
But think about it. In the e-world sending e-mail is like
sending a postcard through the mail system. It can be
read, copied, changed, added to, examined etc. as it
passes through sorting offices. You wouldn’t send your
clients letters on a postcard. And this is why increasingly
solicitors are adapting to and adopting new technology,
seeing and benefiting from increased usage of electronic
communications. Benefits include:
● Reduced Office Administrative Costs
● Reduced Post Costs (DX, LP, Royal Mail)
● Responding to client demand
● Faster turnaround times
So how do solicitors operate in an e-world whereby
instructions, issued electronically (eg in e-mail), will be
immediately trusted and treated as if they had been
presented as an original paper document?
Clinging to paper might be easier and more comfortable
for you. But it is unlikely to give you a competitive edge.
The Law Society of Scotland believes IT and electronic
communications offer significant advantages and wants
to ensure the profession is best placed to take
maximum advantage of these.
People need to know that their e-mails and web traffic
will stay confidential. Building a trusted electronic
environment requires a number of skills in addition to
technical know-how. There are three cornerstones,
which are fundamental to the process and solicitors
have an advantage in two of them:
1 Creation of a trusted environment using Public
Key Infrastructure (PKI) technologies
2 Legislation and Regulation
3 Laws of Evidence
It would be easy if all the issues could be purchased
shrink wrapped from a local IT store but the Society can
support and assist in this area. By taking a professionwide
view the Society can address all three
cornerstones for the benefit of all.The remainder of this
article looks at PKI.
A Trusted Environment built on Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI)
Some marketing gurus hold that that lawyers sell trust,
not knowledge of the law; in the same way that Black &
Journal
IT
The Law Society of Scotland is well ahead of the Digital ‘Signatures’ game: Scottish solicitors
must keep up with developments in this crucial area