On Jan 29, 2014, at 3:52 PM, Dave <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote:
On 29/01/2014 16:25, Paul Koning wrote:
On Jan 28, 2014, at 10:55 PM, tom
<thomas.w.cranston at gmail.com> wrote:
...
Legal - In some parts of the world documents faxed are considered legal, as if the
had been hand delivered.
The USA is such a place.
paul
Does that mean that unlike the UK, e-mails are not legal in the USA?
No, they can be. A number of people won't accept their legitimacy,
since emails can be relatively easily forged; banks are particularly
pesky about this (and perhaps rightly so). There exist other, more
secure methods of document transfer (including PGP-encrypted and
signed emails and HTTPS document transfers) that are perfectly
technologically feasible, but large corporations are slow-moving
entities.
All my documents for work, for example, can usually be done by email.
We take measures to encrypt sensitive documents (usually PGP, but
some customers insist on HTTPS transfer services which have varying
degrees of reliability). Medical documents, on the other hand, are
usually a no-no for email because of the possibility of disseminating
personally identifying information (not that a fax is really that
much better, but it provides the illusion).
My recollection is that electronic signatures have been valid in the
USA since the Clinton era; I actually remember the report on the
evening news when he signed the bill into law. My recollection is
that he made a show of signing it electronically, which would present
a chicken-egg dilemma, but there was probably also an official pen
signing as well.
- Dave