A new high-tech industry took its wares to Congress on Wednesday to mark the start of a world in which digital signatures have the same legal weight as those inked on paper.
As a result of a landmark "e-sign" law that took effect in the United States on Sunday, businesses and consumers may now close mortgages, sign life insurance and seal contracts with the click of a mouse.
"This is going to revolutionise the way we do business," said retiring House Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, the Virginia Republican who is the law`s author.
Bliley threw open his panel`s hearing room to vendors of gizmos that may soon add face, thumb and iris scans to the fast-changing landscape of Internet-enabled electronic commerce.
Among those taking part was privately held iLumen Corp., which drove what it called the "golden spike" of the Internet age early Sunday with what may have been the first deal under the measure President Clinton signed into law -- using a "smart card," not a pen -- on June 30.
The historic deal, signed in the comfort of their homes in different states, was a multimillion dollar venture financing investment in WarRoom Research, providers of an electronic gateway to competitive intelligence.
The new law "is as important to e-commerce as the genome (human gene-mapping project) is to medicine," said J. Scott Lowry, president and chief executive of Digital Signature Trust, majority owned by Zions Bancorporation.
Lowry`s Salt Lake City-based company is an issuer of credentials that guarantee an individual`s identity online, including the one behind the smart card used by Clinton.
Just as a driver`s license or a passport may be used for such confirmation in the physical world, its certificates verify who`s who in cyberspace.
Last month, the company, the first licensed "certification authority" in the United States, announced it would issue 80,000 digital certificates on behalf of the US Department of Veterans Affairs and 8,000 on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Veterans Affairs will use the digital I.D.`s as part of a drive to streamline applying for and using veterans benefits. The Emergency Management agency will let top managers at federal, state and local levels use them to access sensitive data bases over the Web.
Smart Cards
Also showcased in Congress was DataKey, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based provider of smart cards to store and protect digital credentials.
Using advanced data-scrambling technology, such cards are meant to secure e-commerce by requiring the presence of both something you own (your smart card) and something you know (your password).
Under the e-sign law, an electronic "signature" may be any personal identifier -- not just a scanned-in scrawl -- that can be broken down into bits and bytes of electronic code.
Digital signatures currently come in two basic forms -- key-based and "biometric," or based on such unique bodily measures as fingerprints, eyes or voiceprints.
A process that used to involve getting together around a table can now be accomplished in a split second because it is entirely electronic and paperless.
The biometric technology devoted to automating the recognition of physical traits is also getting a big shot in the arm from the "e-sign" bill.
Privately held BioNetrix of Vienna, Va., for instance, showcased a face-scanning capability to strengthen user authentication by doing away with passwords.
"Thanks to the new law, thumb, face and retina scans are no longer a futuristic dream," Bliley said as he surveyed the wizardry on display. "They are here."
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