On 10 August 2012, a public consultation was initiated for the ‘Guidelines on Digital Stamps’ (‘Linee guida su Contrassegno elettronico’, in Italian) issued by the newly constituted Agency for Digital Italy. In the consultation, which will last until 20 September 2012, specialists and Government representatives are invited to suggest revisions and additions to the document in question.

The Guidelines aim to enable government agencies to use advanced technological tools to produce an electronically generated digital stamp. This stamp will help to protect analogue documents (mostly on paper) from forgery and fraud during their use and dissemination. The increased use of digital stamps (at various levels of use, as described in the Guidelines) will allow a more rapid and secure implementation of the Italian Digital Agenda. The document was drawn up in accordance with Article 23, Subsection 5, of the Code of Digital Administration (CAD).

The Guidelines concern those types of administrative electronic documents for which it is necessary to ensure (1) the origin and conformity between the paper copy and the original electronic document, (2) the technical methods of generation, and (3) the placing and checking of the digital stamp in print format on the document.

The Guidelines:

• describe the technical characteristics of the electronically generated stamp to enable the functional verification of conformity of the administrative document to the electronic version;
• identify general scenarios under which the tag is applied, consistent with the provisions of the technical rules concerning electronic administrative documents and document flow management;
• discuss techniques, methods and functional tools adoption and proper application of technology inherent in the use of digital stamps;
• examine some significant cases in which this technology is already in use.

Comments on the draft document should be emailed to the following address: lineeguidaCONTRASSEGNO@digitpa.gov.it.

Further information:

• Original news article - DigitPA (in Italian)
• ’Guidelines on Digital Stamps’ (in Italian)