The News General DM News EU makes digital signature checker open source
07 October 2009
A tool to check the legitimacy of digital identities and certification authorities issuing electronic signatures has been made open source by the European Union.
The TSLEdit tool is hosted on the Osor Forge, the development website of the EU's Open Source Observatory and Repository (Osor).
TSLEdit was developed as part of the Wesign project. This involved chambers of commerce in nine EU countries working together to increase the use of digital certificates by small- and medium sized enterprises, to sign documents electronically and access electronic government services.
TSLEdit will be used to build a pan-European online list of trusted certification service providers. Such a list is a goal of the EU's "Action plan on e-signatures and e-identification". The list will make it easier to trust electronic signatures coming from EU member states, boosting trade and promoting e-commerce.
The tool can be used to verify digital identities across borders and across certification authorities. The technology though is said to have some stability problems, and it is hoped the open source development community can help iron these out to make it more reliable.
