Margot Saunders: Basic Standards for esignature bill

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Margot Saunders from the National Consumer Law Center
(http://www.nclc.org) has been spending a lot of time on the federal
digital signatures legislation.   These are her "basic standards" for a
bill on this issue.

Jamie


Subject: 
       Info on esign bills
   Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 15:54:40 -0500
  From: Margot Saunders <MARGOT@nclcdc.org>
    To: love@cptech.org

Basic Standards for esignature bill

1.  Electronic disclosures should only be permitted when the
transaction is initiated and consummated electronically and not
in person.  

2.   The consumer should be given the specific and optional
opportunity to consent -- or to refuse -- to accept disclosures
electronically.  

3.  If the consumer is wrong about the capacity of the computer
to print and/or retain the electronic record of the disclosures,
the  consumer must be able to request paper copies to be
provided at reasonable and bona fide cost, and in a reasonable
and timely manner. 

4.  The disclosures must actually be delivered to the
consumer's email address with a manual reply return
requested, or must be retained on the creditor's website for
the duration of the credit agreement.  

5.  When disclosures are provided to consumers through a
creditor's website, they must be retained for the duration of
the contract. 

6. The integrity and the timing of the electronic disclosures
must be assured.

7. When signatures are required, the electronic signature
technologies used must be reasonable, tied to the consumer's
actual intent to sign the document, and only be attached to
documents which are unalterable after the signature is
attached. 

8. There should a separate consent for each type of disclosure
made after consummation. The consumer's failure to respond
to the consent request should trigger paper disclosures before
the failure to respond to an electronic disclosure triggers
default. 



Margot Saunders
Managing Attorney
National Consumer Law Center
1629 K Street, NW
Washington, D.C.  20006
(202) 986-6060
margot@nclcdc.org

-- 
James Love / Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org / love@cptech.org
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 202.387.8030 / fax 202.234.5176