The Regulation (EU) N°910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (better known as the eIDAS Regulation) has applied directly to the EU Member States since 1 July 2016, when it came into full effect and the eSignature Directive of 1999 was repealed. The new legal framework ensures legal certainty for cross-border use of e-signatures, e-seals, time-stamps, eDelivery service and website authentication certificates. The main changes introduced by the eIDAS Regulation are:

a regulation, not a directive, making it directly applicable across Europe without the need for transposition into national legislation

paving the way to new remote qualified signature solutions and improved user experience

a pan-European harmonization of electronic signature

electronic documents cannot be denied legal effect solely because they are in electronic form

qualified trust services across Europe

the introduction of electronic seals, available to legal persons, technologically similar to electronic signature and ensuring identity and integrity

the introduction of time stamping

the constitutive effect of national Trusted Lists

a qualified validation service for qualified electronic signatures

The Commission Implementing Decision related to the publication of Trusted Lists

Article 22 of the eIDAS Regulation obliges Member States to publish information related to the qualified trust service providers (QTSP) for which they are responsible, together with information related to the qualified trust services provided by them. Non-qualified trust service providers and trust services can be included on a voluntary basis. This information is published in so-called ‘trusted lists’ and Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/1505 defines the technical specifications of these trusted lists.

The result of this Decision is the EU Trust Backbone, composed of the EU List of the Trusted Lists and the different Member States' Trusted Lists, a critical common asset upon which electronic signatures in Europe rely.

The EU List of the Trusted Lists and the Member State Trusted Lists are available via the Trusted List Manager.

Electronic signatures in Portugal

In the Portuguese legal framework, electronic signatures are regulated by Decree-Law No. 12/2021 of 9 February, that implements the eIDAS Regulation into Portuguese law, and where, among others, it is established that the probative value of a document to which has a qualified electronic signature was affixed is equivalent to that of a signature whose authorship was recognized by a notary, under the terms of art. 376 of the Civil Code.

Until 2000, only hand-written signatures were legally valid. The Directive on a Community framework for electronic signature (eSignature Directive), adopted in 1999, went into effect in January of 2000 and extended that recognition to electronic signatures.

The eSignature Directive established the legal framework at European level for electronic signatures and certification services. The aim was to ensure the security and legal integrity of communication occurring online by making electronic signatures easier to use and legally recognised within the European Union. Completion of such a legal framework was an essential prerequisite for efficient electronic delivery of public services and for the development of safe electronic transactions. The Directive did not favour any specific technology.

The eSignature Directive was repealed as of 1 July 2016 when the rules on trust services under the eIDAS Regulation came into effect.