Standards Development

Scope

Review the existing European standardisation deliverables in the field of secure electronic postal services to adapt them, as appropriate, to Regulation (EU) 910/2014 (i.e. eIDAS Reg 2.0), while taking into account the relevant standards developed, or being under development, according to the “Electronic identification and trust services” chapter of the Commission Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation of 2022. CEN shall coordinate its work on these standardisation deliverables with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, where possible.

Purpose

Specifying an Electronic Postal Certification Mark (EPCM, or postal digital seal) service which conforms with the definition in Article 38-004 of the UPU Regulations to the Convention - Final Protocol, as well as provisions of the eIDAS Reg (EU) 910/2014. It is based on a subset of the verbs or operations defined in CEN/TS 15121-1 to which the reader is referred.

An EPCM is essentially a digital signature verification and timestamping authority which verifies, and logs as evidence, the content integrity of electronic information. The collection of technical services in an EPCM service can cryptographically verify and store electronic evidence in support of the resolution of potential disputes which challenge the authenticity of events within a cycle of one or more automated transactions involving a postal customer. An EPCM service constructed to this specification can support the capture and reproduction of evidence data attesting to the fact that a target business transaction was conducted and completed in an environment of integrity and trustworthiness.

The COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION of 18.1.2023 on a standardisation request to the European Committee for Standardisation as regards postal services and the improvement of quality of service in support of Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EU) 2018/644 of the European Parliament and of the Council; M590 (2023)223 final; accepted by the CEN technical board February 7th 2023, includes in Annex I, table 2, point 2 – “CEN/TS 15121-1, Postal services. Hybrid mail – Secured electronic postal services (SePS) interface specification. Electronic Postal Certification Mark (EPCM) service.”