Changes and additions to law “For electronic signature”, as amended

Official Bulletin no. 259, dated 6 January 2017

The Parliament of Albania, on 15.12.2016, approved law nr. 122/2016, whereby makes some changes and additions to law no. 9880, 25.02.2008, “For electronic signature”, as amended.

Firstly, the law makes a change to the name of “National Authority for Electronic Certification” to “Responsible Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security”, as well as defines that this national authority is delegated to supervise the regulatory framework, determined in this law and in the current legislation of the Republic of Albania.

The Law reformulates article 10, where point 6 is added, according to which the Authority has the right to release guidelines, to regulate the activity of qualified bidders of trust services. Whereas unlike the former law which determined that the organization and operating of the Authority was approved by the Decision of the Prime Minister, according to the proposal of the Minister, the new law defines that it is approved by Decision of the Council of Ministers.

Changes are made to the article 22 as well, which now determines peremptorily that the duties that must be transferred by the bidder of the certification services, by agreement, to third parties are:

a) The process of the owners of certificates identification;

b) The generating of qualified certificates;

c) Deliverance of the respective device where the qualified certificate is preserved.

The new law includes the addition made below point 2 of article 54, which refers to the acceptance and usage of electronic signature and foreign products, according to which, for qualified bidders of trust services, who operate in member countries of the European Union and are accredited by the respective supervising authority, the identification and trust services issued by them will have the same legal validity and probation strength, as those issued by a qualified bidder of trust services, who operates in the Republic of Albania.