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authentication procedures or commercially acceptable authentication procedures
agreed upon by the parties involved, it meets the following requirements:
1. It is uniquely linked to the signatory and to no other person;
2. It is capable of identifying its owner;
3. It is created using means of its owner and under his sole control; and
4. It is linked to the record to which it relates in such a manner that does not
allow modification to that record after signing without altering the signature
so that any change made after the time of signing is detectable.
In the UAE, the use and admissibility of electronic signatures is governed by Federal
Law No.1 of 2006 regarding Electronic Transactions and E-Commerce. This law defines
electronic signature in Article (1) as “any letters, numbers, symbols, voice or processing
system in Electronic form applied to, incorporated in, or logically associated with a Data
Message with the intention of authenticating or approving the same”. Article (17) states
that an electronic signature shall be treated as a Secure Electronic Signature if, through
the application of prescribed secure
In addition, Article (18) allows the parties to rely on an electronic signature or electronic
authentication certificate to the extent that such reliance is reasonable. It also provides
that the relying party in respect of such signature shall bear the legal consequences of
its failure to take reasonable and necessary steps to verify the validity and enforceability
of the certificate, as to whether it is suspended or revoked, and of observing any limita-
tions with respect to the certificate.
It should be noted here that the Electronic Transactions and E-Commerce law and all
subsequent regulations, regulatory policies, and legal instruments in UAE are intended
to be technologically neutral, hence the omission of a specific technology for secure
electronic signatures.
Later, the UAE Federal Law No. 36 of 2006 amended certain provisions of the Evidence
Law in Civil and Commercial Transactions issued by Federal Law No. 10 of 1992. Accord-
ing to this Law, both electronic signatures, and electronic writing, instruments and
documents shall have the same evidential weight as written signatures, and official
and customary writing and instruments respectively if they comply with the provisions
prescribed in the Federal Law No. (1) of 2006 concerning Electronic Transactions.
July 2018
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