Israel’s Knesset will soon present a draft bill for ensuring safe electronic commerce in which Israeli Internet users can have a protected electronic "signature," reported The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
The bill was jointly prepared by the committees of science and law.
The law, said the paper, will take effect six months after its publication in Reshumot, the official Israeli government gazette, and soon, various regulations will be instituted to prepare the economy and government offices for it.
"Israel will join the family of states in which the electronic signature is recognized as a vital tool for developing electronic commerce,” an official told the Post.
The person who releases an electronic signature is made responsible by the bill for taking "reasonable measures" to ensure that the means of producing such a signature is protected from unauthorized users, said the official.
The bearer of such a signature will not be held liable for damage if he met these requirements, added the paper.
Meanwhile, an online study by the American University suggested that Israel’s inferior Internet infrastructure is the main reason for the slower e-commerce activity in comparison to other countries.
Israel’s infrastructure is not only inferior but is also far too expensive, said the study.
“Government and state bodies fail to grasp the significance of this issue. Instead, they avoid it,” Yaniv Harari, director of Israel Online company was quoted as saying.
Before Israelis can use the Internet, they need cheap Internet access, he said.
However, a survey said last month that the Jewish state Israel ranks 12th worldwide in its use of the Internet.
The survey was carried out by TNS, a company represented in Israel by TNS-Teleseker company.
Norway tops the list, with 60 percent of the population using the Internet, followed by the United States with 50.3 percent, said the survey.
The survey showed 19.8 percent of the Israeli population linked to the Web, sandwiched between Italy with 20 percent and France's 16.9 percent, said the paper.
The TNS survey said that 20 percent of the over-13 age Israeli group, comprising 1.27 million people, use the Internet – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
