Adobe-led Consortium Drives New ETSI Standard for Cloud-Based Digital Signatures

Today, leading IT standards body, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), published a new open standard that will bring cloud-based digital signatures to any mobile device and web application. The new standard, ETSI TS 119 432, includes a significant contribution developed by the Adobe-led industry group, Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC). CSC is a group of industry leaders and academic organizations committed to building an open standard for cloud-based digital signatures for web and mobile.

The new standard is about choice. It allows digital signature solutions like Adobe Sign to work with digital certificates hosted and managed in the cloud by any Trust Service Provider that adopts the standard. When a business process – such as a consumer applying for a new loan, or a researcher gathering data as part of a clinical trial – requires reliable signer identity and authenticity, business users are no longer threatened by complex hardware setup or locked into proprietary technologies. Instead, they can choose the provider that best meets the needs of their sector or jurisdiction.

The adoption of the new standard is the latest example of Adobe’s involvement in open standards development that not only benefit our customers and partners, but also the industry overall. In 2008, Adobe contributed the PDF format to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and it became an open specification, enabling anyone to build their own PDF applications. Today, Adobe is driving mainstream adoption of digital signatures by initiating and helping to lead the Cloud Signature Consortium.

Enterprises today are competing to create the best, most secure digital experiences for their customers, their employees, and their partners. That includes having access to fully mobile cloud signatures on any device, regardless of the country or industry they work in, to drive end-to-end digital business. This new standard will be critical to furthering the digital transformation of business on a global scale by giving everyone access to secure digital signature services across a full range of applications and devices.