Act 7
Electronic Signatures Act
2011
16. Digitally signed document taken to be written document.
(1) A message shall be as valid, enforceable and effective as if it
had been written on paper if—
(a) it bears in its entirety a digital signature; and
(b) that digital signature is verified by the public key listed in a
certificate which—
(i)
was issued by a licensed certification service provider;
and
(ii) was valid at the time the digital signature was created.
(2) Nothing in this Act shall preclude any message, document or
record from being considered written or in writing under any other
applicable law.
17. Digitally signed document deemed to be original document.
A copy of a digitally signed message shall be as valid, enforceable
and effective as the original of the message unless it is evident that
the signer designated an instance of the digitally signed message to be
a unique original, in which case only that instance constitutes the
valid, enforceable and effective message.
18. Authentication of digital signatures.
A certificate issued by a licensed certification service provider shall
be an acknowledgement of a digital signature verified by reference to
the public key listed in the certificate, regardless of whether words of
an express acknowledgement appear with the digital signature and
regardless of whether the signer physically appeared before the
licensed certification service provider when the digital signature was
created, if that digital signature is—
(a) verifiable by that certificate; and
(b) was affixed when that certificate was valid.
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