How to harmonise local and remote signing

Abstract

While the generation of qualified electronic signatures traditionally required the use of local qualified electronic signature creation devices (QSCD) in form of smart cards for example, the eIDAS-Regulation [EU14] introduced the promising option for Hardware Security Module (HSM) based QSCDs and remote signature protocols, which are especially suitable for mobile environments. As the technical interfaces of these two approaches are fundamentally different, one until today needs to choose a solution, which either supports local or remote signing but not both. In this paper we show how to harmonise the two seemingly distinct worlds in order to enable adaptive signing solutions which seamlessly allow to use both local and remote QSCDs and provide the best possible user experience for the generation of qualified electronic signatures.