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 2023. CEN shall coordinate its work on these standardisation deliverables with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, where possible.

Purpose

TS 16326 constitutes the functional specification of a secure electronic postal service, referred to as the Postal Registered electronic Mail or PReM service.

PReM provides a trusted and certified electronic mail exchange between mailer, postal operators and addressee / mailee. In addition, evidence of corresponding events and operations within the scope of PReM will be generated and archived for future attestation. The PReM service is defined by reference to the concepts, schemas and operations defined in CEN/TS 15121-1 Postal Services. Hybrid Mail – Secure electronic Postal Services (SePS) interface specification – Part 1: Concepts, schemas and operations. It utilises six SePS operational verbs (CheckIntegrity, LogEvent, Postmark, RetrieveResults, Sign and Verify) and the five additional server-side operational verbs (SendMessagetoDestination, Subscribe Notification, UnscbscribeNotification, RejectMessage and ReceiveNotification) to fulfil the operational requirements of a PReM System. 

Return of Investment (ROI), market potential, revenues model, business plan and pricing policy are outside the scope of this functional specification. Postal operators are advised to make the necessary marketing study and research prior to considering leasing, procuring or developing such a PReM system in accordance with this functional specification. 

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 3 – “CEN/TS 16326, Postal services. Postal Services. Hybrid Mail – Functional Specification for postal registered electronic mail.”