Analyzing and Evaluating the 2020 General Amendments to the Korean Digital Signature Act

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the requirements that the Korean Digital Signature Act (hereinafter “Digital Signature Act”) must fulfill and to verify the legitimacy of the 2020 General Amendment to the Digital Signature Act. With the enforcement of the amended Digital Signature Act on December 10, 2020, the “certified digital signature system” was abolished. Consequently, various digital signatures are now recognized as equally effective without the need for national authorization, and different certificates that verify the effectiveness of digital signatures are currently competing in the market. However, domestic research regarding the status quo is limited. Digital signatures guarantee safety and convenience of electronic documents by confirming the identity of the parties and effectiveness of an electronic contract. In modern society, where digital signatures are widely used to help building a trust system, changes in related laws are bound to have a major impact on the overall economy. Therefore, it is necessary to trace why the general amendment of the Digital Signature Act in 2020 was necessary and to evaluate whether the amended law is sufficiently suitable for creating a desirable digital environment. For an adequate evaluation of both the old and amended laws and to provide appropriate recommendations, this research was organized in the following order. First, by clarifying the significance of digital signatures and by analyzing the documents on “Reasons for Revisions” of the Korean Digital Signature Act and the Digital Signature Model Act of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNICITRAL), this research derived four criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of the Digital Signature Act: stability and reliability of electronic documents; contribution to the expansion of use of electronic documents; contribution to informatization; and contribution to the improvement of public convenience. Then, based on these four criteria, this research argued why it was necessary to generally amend the old Digital Signature Act (hereinafter “the old law”). The state-led certified digital signature system guaranteed a stable legal environment for electronic contracts in the short term; however, in the process, there has been an increase in risk and inconvenience caused to users and the potential development of various authentication technologies has been hampered. Finally, this research summarizes the main contents of the amended Digital Signature Act (hereinafter “the amended law”) and evaluates it based on the abovementioned four criteria. Consequently, the research reveals that the amended law positively contributes to informatization and increases public convenience by promoting a desirable competition among certificate operators. However, for the newly implemented “Recognition System for Compliance with Operating Standards” to be effective, the distribution of responsibility among related government departments must be fair and clearer than what the amended law and practice currently provides.