전자거래에 있어서 본인인증과 전자서명의 법적 문제에 관한 고찰

In electronic transactions using the Internet, it is very important to secure the identity of the trader himself. Authentication is to ensure that information is not created, altered, or destroyed unintentionally. Verification may classify the three category of the approval of the other party, confirmation of stability, and prevention of denial. The electronic signature is a means for securing the authentication using public key cryptography in electronic transactions. In this paper, I will discuss the system of securing the authentication by electronic signature comparing with the signature and seal, which is the authentication means in the written transactions, mainly from the viewpoint of the legal issues. The legal issues related to digital signatures can be divided into issues of the procedural and substantive law. In regard to the handling of evidence law in this case, considering the fact that the signed and sealed documents have the effect of presuming the formal admissibility of evidence under the Civil Procedure Act, it is necessary to give same effect of presumption of formal admissibility of evidence to the digital signature data. In addition, since actual admissibility of evidence can be thought of as in the case of a document evidence, submitting digital signature data as evidence is treated the same as in case of document evidence, and there is no need to reinforce it by supporting facts. In addition, in digital signatures, it is presumed that instantaneous clicks on the data sender side are expected, but since everyone has to cope with it, it gives an estimation of the existence of a pseudo sign in the data attached to the digital signature. As a matter of substantive law, how to deal with the case legally when a digital signature is created or sent by a third party by theft of a secret key is a problem. This point should be assumed that the data attached to the digital signature is authorized to the third party even if it is transmitted by a third party. In this case, if the proprietor has proved the authority for the third party, it will be possible to solve it by the doctrine of expression of intent. Whether or not an electronic signature has such an effect under current law is unclear. If the use of digital signatures should not be an impediment, appropriate measures such as legislation should be taken into account in light of such legal uncertainties.