The Government did introduce the Electronic Communications Act before the EU's deadline which addresses some, but not all, of the Directive's provisions. However, several aspects of the Directive are not yet in UK law.
A consultation took place last year with a view to forming UK laws to implement the Directive's remaining provisions. That consultation closed in June 2001. The following month, E-commerce Minister Douglas Alexander announced that it had raised issues which "required further discussion." The Government has postponed that discussion until now.
The DTI on Friday released its new discussion document, which includes a summary of the responses to the last consultation, and a draft of the proposed implementing regulations. The draft regulations provide, for instance, that the Secretary of State shall maintain a register of approved digital certificate providers, and set out the circumstances in which a certificate provider shall be liable to its customers when the customer suffers loss as a result of a problem with the certificate.
The DTI is seeking comments before 12th February 2002 to elecsigsconsultation@dti.gov.uk.
