eContracting

Abstract

Chapter 5 analyzes the electronic negotiation process and shows how electronic agreements can be designed to be legally binding. First, Sect. 5.1 discusses the elements of electronic contracts, and later on, Sect. 5.2 introduces to generic services for the negotiation process. The identity management, as presented in Sect. 5.3, deals with user identification and user administration. Asymmetric encoding procedures (Sect. 5.4) make it possible not only to encode and decode documents, but also to generate digital signatures (Sect. 5.5). With these, the Law can declare electronic contracts legally binding on Electronic Signatures. In Sect. 5.6, the Public Key Infrastructure is explained, which is needed to issue digital signatures and certificates. Then, Sect. 5.7 presents the basic concepts of blockchain technology and its applications, including eGoverment. An overview of laws and ordinances on data protection and data security is given in Sect. 5.8. Section 5.9 provides bibliographical notes. A case study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research demonstrates how the face recognition in the biometric passport (ePass) works.