The European Court of Human Rights Adds Digital Signatures to its SharePoint Platform

The European Court of Human Rights, located in Strasbourg France, has a very important job to do. Established in 1959, the Court is responsible for protecting the human rights of millions of Europeans by ruling on applications alleging the violation of rights defined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Judgments made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) are enforced on the national level and are incorporated into the legislations of the forty-seven Council of Europe member states that have ratified the Convention.

But this responsibility doesn’t daunt John Hunter, head of the ECHR’s IT department. It solidifies the importance of implementing the smartest and highest-quality processes so the Court can function at its best. This was part of the thinking behind the development of the ECHR’s homegrown electronic workflow system. Built using Microsoft® SharePoint Workflow Foundation coupled with reporting tools that allow users to see the statuses of their workflows, the system enhances productivity and collaboration and significantly streamlines the Court’s case management processes. The ECHR also uses web services to integrate the system with its case management and document management databases.

Despite the implementation of a powerful electronic workflow solution, paper constantly found its way into the ECHR’s processes. With 50,000+ applications being received annually, the Court creates hundreds of thousands of documents each year that require signature authorizations. Without a method for securely signing documents electronically, every document that required a signature needed to be printed, manually routed to the signing party, and then returned after signing to an assistant who would scan the document back into the system. This paper-based approach to obtaining signature approvals created a costly and time-consuming disruption to the Court’s otherwise automated processes, and significantly hindered the efficacy of its electronic workflow solution. 

Hunter determined that implementing a digital signature solution would effectively solve this problem and provide additional benefits. With digital signatures, Court employees would be able to facilitate fully electronic processes through the signature approval stage. Further, digital signatures would enable the Court to embrace electronic archiving without the need for scanning paper documents. In addition, Court employees would be able to use their digital signatures when working remotely and avoid delaying signature-dependent processes.

In order for a digital signature solution to be adopted by the European Court of Human Rights, it would need to meet a number of strict requirements. First, the solution would need to offer the highest security standards, with the digital signature providing infallible proof of signer identity and intent, and document integrity. Second, the digital signature solution would need to easily and seamlessly integrate with the Court’s existing electronic workflow system. Finally, the Court required full control over signer authorizations, meaning that the solution would also need to seamlessly sync with Microsoft Active Directory®.

“We were very clear about what we needed when moving to a digital signature solution, and we always use due diligence before we buy any software for the Court,” Hunter explained. “This is why our process entails a detailed proof of concept phase. Before we go with a solution, we’re given a trial version of it that allows us to get our hands dirty, to play with the solution and test it. Then we create a proof of concept so we know what we’re buying before we buy, so we know that it’s the right solution.”

After thoroughly testing the solution, Hunter and his team found that CoSign® digital signatures precisely met each of the Court’s requirements. “We looked at other products on the market and CoSign best met our needs. We wanted to have the ability to really take ownership of the product; SAPI®, the CoSign Signature API, offers a great .NET interface that made it very easy for my developers to integrate it with our workflow solution. The ease of use and installation was really key, and we also liked that CoSign issues its own certificates so we didn’t have to buy any.”

Hunter went on to note that reliability was another important factor. “Before we installed the solution we got some outside consultants to evaluate it, look at all of the security aspects, and verify the issuing and security of the certificates. It was quite a detailed process.”

Despite Hunter’s excitement about digital signatures, giving up paper-based signatures required some convincing for certain employees. This led Hunter to perform an interesting demonstration between digital signatures and handwritten signatures:

“It can be difficult to convince a lawyer that a system is more secure than signing by hand,” Hunter said. “So, as a simple demonstration, I obtained two letters signed on paper by the Registrar of the court. I practiced his signature a few times and then wrote it on a third letter. I sent the three letters back to him and asked which one had the fake signature, and he chose one of the letters he’d signed. This demonstrated that it’s easy to put a signature on a document and fax it out without anyone knowing about it. But by putting a digital signature on a document, we record the time of signing, there’s a certificate that’s issued, and the entire process is much more reliable.”

Fortunately, making the case for digital signatures to the rest of the Court didn’t require further demonstrations. The ECHR did a “trial run” in which it issued digital signing certificates to one section of the Court. That team returned only positive feedback. “They really liked it,” Hunter said. “The assistants especially loved it because it meant they were doing less scanning of paper documents back into the system. Everything was automated.”

 

Today, 200 employees at the European Court of Human Rights use CoSign to digitally sign documents and keep their workflows electronic from start to finish. In fact, within the last year alone over 300,000 letters were signed digitally. “With CoSign, embedding digital signatures into electronic documents we use in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server has been effortless,” says Hunter. He explained that through the Court’s homegrown workflow solution, employees see when a document requires their signature. After signing, the person who originally requested the signature is automatically notified that the document has been signed, and they can then publish the signed electronic document directly to the Court’s online repository. “No more scanning, no more paper being pushed around. It’s all very efficient,” Hunter said. He added that CoSign is also used to quickly obtain multiple signatures on a document, as well as to sign multiple pages of a document in one simple step.

 

In the future, Hunter plans to extend digital signing support beyond letters and decisions, and to enable judges and Registrars of the court to use them for signing judgments. He noted that, with judgments typically requiring an average of four signature approvals, employing digital signatures in that specific process would generate a substantial improvement in efficiency. Today, his team and all of the signers at the European Court of Human Rights are happy to have left paper-based signatures behind. “Overall, we’re very pleased with the performance of the system.” Hunter said.

The European Court of Human Rights was established under the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950 to monitor compliance by Contracting Parties. Visit them at www.echr.coe.int/echr/.

ARX (Algorithmic Research) is the provider of CoSign®, the market-leading digital signature solution and the only solution of its kind that is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft® SharePoint®. Used by organizations across industries, CoSign enables signature-dependent workflows in SharePoint to remain paper-free by equipping professionals with secure, complaint digital signatures that may be used to sign any of the most popular file types, including PDF, PDF/A, InfoPath, IBM Forms, and Office documents. By eliminating the reversion to paper each time a signature is required, CoSign allows organizations to complete their investment in business automation while achieving streamlined operations, reduced organizational costs, and enhanced collaboration. CoSign may be used to digitally sign SharePoint documents via desktop, laptop, and a variety of the most popular smartphones and tablets. CoSign signatures can be verified for signer identity and intent, and document integrity, by any party without requiring proprietary validation software. Learn more about the CoSign digital signature solution.