ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 44. (ZAGREB, 2001.)

Strana - 143

J. Zwicker, Pravna pitanja vezana za autentičnost zapisa u elektroničkom okruženju, Arh. vjesn., god. 44 (2001), str. 133-143 onal aspect is of paramount significance, legal aspect should be a prerequisite involved in all the others. Legal aspect refers to the competences and legal definitions. It means that archivists must have or must be given competences to examine all projects of new IT-applications or changes of existing applications from the point of view of authenticity. The archives should have legal right to establish rules for the records creating bodies on the issue of dealing with electronic documents and records in the administrative processes. Definitions of archives, records, documents, covering all kinds of recorded informations, should be fixed in legal rules and should have an obligatory effect on their creators. Archivist should give additional attention to the general and specific laws in the public domain. Private business, especially commerce nad banking, with spread of IT into the field, show the growing interest in the authenticity of electronic records. Recent examples from Switzerland illustrate changes in the civil law caused by use of the electronic records. Official drafts are prepared for the following laws: Law on Electronic Signature, Law on Certification Services for Electronic Signatures and Law on Electronic Commerce. The aim is to give to the electronic signature the value of handwritten signature, what includes procedures of ensuring the provenance of the records, i.e. their authenticity. Another law previews companies authorized to certificate qualified electronic signatures. Law on e-Commerce should ensure validity of electronic signatures for Contract Law and help to protect rights of the consumers in electronic environment. In respect to all these issues, because of their specific knowledge, archivist could be involved as allies of legal community, auditors, accountants and managers, solving problems of the survival of authentic and reliable organizational records, their long-term preservation, future retrieval and legal status. Keywords: electronic records, archival records, authenticity of records, archival legislation 143