Qualified Long-term Preservation Services

The long-term preservation of signed electronic documents ensures that the documents remain legally valid for as long as they need to be kept.

The legal validity of signed electronic documents is confirmed by the electronic signatures and seals contained therein. An electronic document is legally binding if its signatures and seals are valid. An electronic signature or seal is valid if, upon verification, there is evidence that it was confirmed by a qualified certificate valid at the time of signing.

If an electronic signature or seal becomes invalid, it cannot be transformed and made valid again. The only way to maintain the validity of an electronic document is to continuously preserve the validity of its electronic signatures and seals by storing and regularly updating the data that proves their validity.

The validity of an electronic signature or seal is usually verified using software tools. The validation is based on the validity of the certificates and cryptographic algorithms used in the signatures and seals, as well as on other proofs of the validity that have been collected.

Preserving the legal validity of electronic documents can be a complicated process due to:

• the variety of formats for electronic documents, electronic signatures, and electronic seals;
• the necessary planning and timely renewal of electronic signatures and seals, taking into account the validity of certificates and cryptographic algorithms, as well as changes to the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI);
• the need to monitor changes in PKI (standards, cryptographic algorithms, trusted lists) and respond to the impact of these changes on software responsible for the long-term preservation of documents.

Long-term preservation services and their software hide these complex processes. By employing them, owners and developers of DMS and other IS can integrate long-term preservation of electronic documents into their systems through API calls.

These services are intended for owners and developers of DMS and other IS that contain signed electronic documents. The services resolve the challenge of ensuring the validity of electronic documents.

The services are integrated into the client system using REST-style web services. There are two options available:

• “With storage”: electronic documents are stored in the MitSoft services repository and their maintenance is handled by services processes;
• “Without storage”: electronic documents are stored in the client’s system, whose processes trigger timely calls to MitSoft services to preserve the legal validity of the documents.

If the client’s documents are subject to specific restrictions regarding transfer to external services, MitSoft’s long-term preservation software can be deployed within the client’s infrastructure. Such long-term preservation services would not count as qualified services.

The services solve the concerns of ensuring the legal validity of electronic documents:

• Raise signature formats
• Carry out a timely extension of the validity of signatures
• Monitor PKI changes: standards, cryptographic algorithms, trusted lists (TL)

A valid qualified electronic signature gives to an electronic document the properties of authenticity, integrity, and non-repudiation. If the validity of the signature is lost, these essential properties are lost too—and the electronic document itself loses its evidential value, the very reason it was created and signed in the first place.

The responsibility for validity depends on a national legislation. For instance, Lithuanian legislation assigns responsibility to the electronic document owner or to the organization’s chief manager, to preserve the validity of qualified electronic signatures on stored electronic documents.

• MitSoft qualified services implement the requirements of ES ETSI EN 319 401, ETSI TS 119 511, and ETSI TS 119 512 standards.
• The quality of the services is confirmed by the verification of the implementation of each functional and non-functional requirement by a two-stage certification audit performed by an EU-accredited organization.
• Services are supervised by the state of the Republic of Lithuania with an obligation of activity insurance.
• In the event of a dispute, the responsibility is on the qualified service provider, not the customer, to prove that the provider did not act improperly.

MitSoft long-term preservation services are based on standards for the creation and verification of electronic documents as well as electronic signatures and seals. This ensures that document preservation is independent of the specific requirements or interpretations of any particular software or information system. Thus, maximum document interoperability is ensured—documents preserved in the services are recognized as valid by third-party services, systems, and software.

Documents with qualified and advanced electronic signatures are commonplace and are preserved in the MitSoft qualified long-term preservation services for qualified electronic signatures and seals, with the option for the services user to choose whether or not to preserve the validity of advanced signatures.

Documents with invalid electronic signatures may, at the services user's choice, be accepted for preservation in order to preserve the original quality of the electronic document.

Please contact us, and we will provide you with a proposal tailored to your needs.