What is it about?
This research examines how electronic seals, defined under the European Union’s eIDAS regulation, function with and without blockchain technology. As public services become increasingly digital, electronic identification and trust services have become essential for secure communication between institutions, businesses, and citizens. The electronic seal, based on public key cryptography and X.509 digital certificates, ensures document authenticity and integrity in digital transactions. The study analyzes how this traditional cryptographic approach compares to an alternative implementation that integrates blockchain technology. Using a developed application and the Multichain platform for private blockchains, the research evaluates how both approaches perform in securing and validating digital documents. By testing and comparing different documents under both models, the paper highlights the advantages and limitations of each solution in terms of security, transparency, decentralization, and regulatory compliance.
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Why is it important?
The eIDAS regulation provides a legal framework for electronic identification and trust services across the European Union. Ensuring secure and reliable digital seals is crucial for maintaining trust in digital public services, cross-border transactions, and electronic governance. This research is important because it critically evaluates whether blockchain technology can enhance or complement existing eIDAS-compliant digital seal mechanisms. While traditional PKI-based systems are well-established and legally recognized, blockchain introduces new possibilities for decentralization, transparency, and tamper resistance. Understanding the strengths and limitations of both approaches helps policymakers, institutions, and system designers make informed decisions about adopting emerging technologies in legally regulated digital environments.
Perspectives
From my perspective, this research bridges regulatory compliance and technological innovation. While blockchain is often presented as a disruptive solution, its integration into established legal frameworks like eIDAS must be carefully assessed. The comparison shows that blockchain can enhance transparency and distributed validation, but it must align with regulatory standards and operational requirements. In regulated environments such as the EU, technological innovation must coexist with legal certainty and interoperability. Future work should explore how blockchain-based trust services can be standardized and recognized within regulatory ecosystems. Achieving this balance could enable more resilient, transparent, and cross-border digital trust infrastructures in public administration and business services.
Dr.Sc. Vehbi Neziri
University for Business and Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Analysing and comparing the digital seal according to eIDAS regulation with and without blockchain technology, International Journal of Information and Computer Security, January 2021, Inderscience Publishers,
DOI: 10.1504/ijics.2021.113174.
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