Long-Term Storage of Digitally Signed Documents

Abstract

Digital documents play an increasingly important role in our lives. Reliable digital storage of these documents is complicated and we have to deal with other problems if we would like to store these documents for a long time. Some documents, especially the most important documents are electronically signed. The long-term storage of electronically signed documents is more difficult, because we have to ensure the long-term validity as well. Electronic invoices (e-invoices) are also electronically signed documents and their role is becoming more important. The proposal of the European Committee on e-invoicing aims to facilitate the use of e-invoices. By 2020 e-invoicing will be general usage in the EU. This paper describes the problems in connection with long-term storage of digitally signed documents. Possible solutions are also presented. In connection to this, the regulation of preserving electronically signed documents is also examined from the point of view of Hungarian legislation. Finally it is shown how ETSI’s (European Telecommunication Standards Institute) PAdES (PDF Advanced Electronic Signature) might support the long-term validity of e-documents, using the widely used portable document format (PDF).