E-signatures have been used more than 13 million times in Azerbaijan

As is known, an electronic signature serves as a tool for validating the authenticity and integrity of messages, software, and digital documents. The digital equivalent of a handwritten signature, but offering far more inherent security, an electronic signature is intended to solve the problem of tampering and impersonation in digital communications.

An electronic signature can be used with any kind of message, whether it is encrypted or not, simply so the receiver can be sure of the sender's identity and that the message arrived intact. Electronic signatures make it difficult for the signer to deny having signed something, assuming their private key has not been compromised, as electronic signature is unique to both the document and the signer, and it binds them together.

Electronic signatures are also used extensively to provide proof of authenticity, data integrity and non-repudiation of communications and transactions conducted over the Internet. In other words, an electronic signature ensures secure and flexible execution of the electronic document exchange process in virtual space. For this reason, the number of e-signature users continues to grow in Azerbaijan.

Thus, according to statistical data, the number of e-signature certificates that have been issued so far by National Certificate Services Centre has reached 90530. 59100 of them were issued to state agencies, 16120 – to physical persons, and 15310 - to legal entities.

It should be noted that the number of e-signatures that were issued in May 2016 amounted to 2792. 2318 of them were issued to state agencies, 46 – to physical persons, and 428 - to legal entities.

It is also worth mentioning that as of June 1, 2016, a total of 13 506 771 document signing and authentication transactions had been carried out with the use of e-signatures, which are used as one of the means of authentication on the E-government portal. 11 095 046 of these transactions were carried out by state agencies, and 2 411 725 – by physical persons and legal entities.