Proposition 53K1450

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 9 juillet 2001 fixant certaines règles relatives au cadre juridique pour les signatures électroniques et les services de certification.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Jef Van den Bergh
N-VA Peter Dedecker, Jan Jambon
Open Vld Herman De Croo, Patrick Dewael, Bart Somers
PS | SP Éric Thiébaut
Vooruit Caroline Gennez

Submission date

May 11, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

electronic document electronic signature electronic government electronic mail governance computer systems

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Jan. 19, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

This is a small but important bill. It is a bill that fits within the framework of administrative simplification, which declares the legal validity of the paper-printed signature of an authorized official, for example in a municipality. For example, municipal governments will avoid 2 to 2.5 million documents for consistently declared copies, acts and documents of the population register.

In principle, these are documents from municipal governments, but with an amendment the proposal was extended to the private sector. It is an amendment by sp.a, CD&V, PS and N-VA, since it dates from the pre-regional period. The proposal was unanimously approved. I would also like to point out the good report drawn up by the services.

The present legislative proposal is carried out throughout the House, by the total majority and the opposition. This is a non-essential bill. The proposal attempts to respond to new technologies and possibilities that exist today to make services to citizens more efficient and better.

A study found that municipal governments have to deliver approximately 2.5 million documents annually to citizens, who have to move to the town hall or town hall and often have to return once or twice. This, of course, requires a lot of effort from the citizens and is a waste of time. It also leads to mobility problems.

That is a strange situation, because we have known for a long time electronic documents, certified with an electronic signature. Thus, one can deliver the documents electronically to the people, who can keep them and forward them to third parties. Until now, however, it is impossible to print those documents at home or at work and thus carry them with you. In fact, there is doubt as to whether an electronic signature would also have legal force if it is materialized by a print.

This bill attempts to answer this. The proposal was strengthened in the committee. The same principle should also be applied to the private sector. I think, for example, of someone who has his employment contract electronically. That document would have no legal force if he wanted to print it at home or there could at least be a dispute over the legal force of the document.

This legislation removes that uncertainty and thus ensures that those 2.5 million documents in the future can be delivered in principle electronically, by e-mail, to citizens that can print and use them at home.

I am convinced that it is an important first step towards a society in which the vast majority of the transactions between administration and citizens take place electronically. I take the concrete example of my own town of Mechelen. In 2003 we opened a very large cabinet room to provide quality services to the citizens. I honestly hope that in five or ten years, the box office will have a different function, that citizens will no longer have to come to the town hall for all those papers, that a very large part of those papers has been abolished and that the necessary documents can be delivered electronically and much more efficiently to the vast majority of our citizens.

I would like to thank all the political groups for their support for this bill. We have submitted it with many groups. It is a very concrete step towards a better service in a modern 21st century society.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the text we are about to vote on this afternoon is fully inserted in the technological evolution of our time. By adding a single paragraph to the Act of 9 July 2001, we put an end to legal uncertainty and allow governments and citizens to use the technologies of the future to facilitate their exchange of certified documents.

As an example, and my colleague Somers recalled, in municipalities that will be ready to implement this new possibility, citizens will be able – without moving – to have a whole series of official documents by printing them. It is clear that many are those who have had to take a half-day leave to go to the city hotel, for example, to go for a certificate of good life and morals.

Initially, this proposal focused only on access to administrative acts, but discussions in committees resulted in the legalization of electronic certification of documents issued by private persons. Thus, through the scope of this proposal, we are creating a market that innovative companies will soon seize, if not already.

It remains that we must remain vigilant, because here we are touching an inseparable area of privacy protection. The conditions of the law in this regard are clear and constitute important guards. They are, of course, sufficient, but, dear colleagues, let us still reserve the right to strengthen them if necessary.

Access to documents by electronic means should, in my opinion, remain an option, as it is important that those of us who are less attentive to new technologies retain the possibility of accessing administrative documents in a more traditional way by going to the office of the municipal administrations.

It is with these elements in mind that I am delighted, on behalf of my group, to have co-signed this proposal, which makes us move a little further into the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I am very pleased to be here today with our colleagues Somers, Thiébaut and all the members of the political groups who approved and signed this. In the meantime, it has begun some time ago. On 28 June, the Commission approved the proposal. The European Commission was given three months to comment. In the meantime, we have been further for a while. Fortunately, there were no comments. The opposite would have surprised me.

As previous speakers have already pointed out, this proposal makes it possible to convert electronic documents with an electronic signature to paper, say, to print, while ⁇ ining the authenticity of the signature and the integrity of the document. This technology has existed for a long time. There are legion of possibilities. I think, for example, of QR codes referring to the original digital document, but I will not be too technical on this subject, because that is not the intention. Also the digital signature has existed for some time, then introduced with the law-Bourgeois. This is almost an extension of that story, an intermediate between the paper and the digital world. This makes the link between them possible.

The colleagues Somers and Thiébaut have already listed the possibilities very well. These possibilities are legion and will simplify the lives of many citizens. Think only of the many documents you need to get from municipal governments but also from all other possible services. After all, the opening hours of these services are usually not really tailored to the working person.

However, I would also like to make a comment on this whole story. It is an excellent intermediate step to move from the electronic version to a paper version, without depending on the moments when the issuer is available and without having to take a day off, for example. However, it would be even better if one no longer had to continue playing the postman himself with those paper states and one had to go and bring them somewhere. The future is entirely digital. The possibilities we create here with this bill should not be an excuse to stop the investment and the further informatization of our government and our society. We need to continue investing to counter the paper junkyard.