Presentation to Canadian Federal, Provincial and Territorial Deputy Ministers of Justice in Quebec City (June 2013).

1. Analysis of
Digital & Electronic Signatures
in the Canadian Justice Sector
Patrick Cormier
CEO CCCT
+1 (514) 894-9477
Presentation to FPT
Deputy Ministers of Justice
City of Québec, June 2013

2. Contents
• Signature: Food for Thought
• Signature: Intellectual Toolbox
• Examples of electronic signatures
• The legal challenge: organisational and social
• Going paperless: next steps

3. Food for Thought
• The « Canadian Justice Sector » – scope
• The identity of legal actors – importance
• Going paperless – key: Trust
• Going paperless – danger: unnecessary
complexity (e.g. letters and Canada Post)

4. Toolbox: a definition
« A signature is a permanent record bound to
an object, document or electronic data that is:
• traceable to a specific individual
• personal to that individual
• evidence of an implicit or explicit purpose »

5. Practical Examples
• Autographe
• Signature and initials on contract
• Email
• Email including signature block
• Button « I accept »

6. Toolbox: Quality of a Signature
• The quality of a signature is proportional to
the extent to which the signature possesses
the five reliability attributes
• Signatures that incorporate high assurance
levels in relation to reliability attributes are
deemed high-reliability signatures. In such
cases, the signatures are said to be effective
because one can rely on them

7. Note of Caution to Jurists!
Reliability & Quality of a signature
≠
Legal validity of a signature

8. Toolbox: Evaluation Framework

9. The ideal signature?
The ideal signature is a signature that has high
assurance levels and high convenience levels.
It is difficult to achieve the ideal signature in
the electronic world. Under the current state
of technology, there is an inverse relationship
between convenience and assurance levels of
electronic signatures.

10. Signature Examples: Categories
• Signatures can be grouped in the following
categories:
• Manuscript
• Bio-physical (DNA, thumbprints)
• Electronic

11. And « Digital » Signatures?
• Cryptography
• Typical uses:
– Cleartext transmission (no modification, sender
identification)
– Crypted transmission (cyphertext)
• Symetric v. Asymetric cryptography
• Private key, public key
• Note of caution (PKC & PKI)

12. Importance of PKI
• Public Key Infrastructure:
• key creation process;
• keypair association to an identity, usually with a
certificate
• keypair management (expiration, renewals,
revocation, backup copies…)
• authentification process (1-2-3 factors)
• protection of: (a) keypair creation process; and
(b) encryption / decryption process, software and
hardware

13. Signature Examples: Scenarios
Email with
Signature Block
Secure web site with
user credentials
Documents signed;
content and signature
validated by third party
Digital Signatures

14. The Legal Challenge: Choosing an Electronic
Signature Solution

15. The Legal Challenge: Choosing an Electronic
Signature Solution (cont’d)

16. The Legal Challenge: Choosing an Electronic
Signature Solution (cont’d)

17. Next Steps
• Electronic Legal Information – Going
Paperless: CCCT Guidelines
– Creation of a Working Group (1 jurisdiction)
– Premiss: the legal doc in pdf/a
– Validation with other jurisdictions
• Macro common sense approach… → Principle
of proportionality between required reliability
and deployed means

18. Patrick Cormier
B.Sc., LL.B./BCL, CD
Canadian Centre for Court Technology
p c o r m i e r @ c c c t – c c t j . c a
+ 1 ( 5 1 4 ) 8 9 4 – 9 4 7 7
PowerPoint by
Olivier Jaar, M.Sc.