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Monday, June 19, 2000
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Colleges Hail a Bill Giving Electronic Signatures Legal StatusBy STEPHEN BURD and ANDREA L. FOSTER
The Senate unanimously approved a bill on Friday that would give electronic signatures the same legal status as written signatures. The measure, which was approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday by a vote of 426 to 4, now goes to President Clinton, who is expected to sign it into law. College leaders and lobbyists hailed the legislation, saying that it would allow colleges to conduct most of their business transactions with students over the Internet. It also could speed up the delivery of federal aid to students, the college leaders said. The technology to conduct a broad range of transactions over the Internet has been in place for some time. But without federal legal standards in place, colleges and federal agencies, among others, have been reluctant to allow major business transactions to occur online because it has been unclear whether the deals would be upheld in court. Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Michigan Republican who was a key sponsor of the bill, said that the legislation was meant to alleviate such concerns. "The legislation," he said, "will eliminate the single most significant vulnerability of electronic commerce, which is the fear that everything it revolves around -- electronic signatures, contracts, and other records -- could be rendered invalid solely by virtue of their being in 'electronic' form, rather than in a tangible, ink-and-paper format." College leaders said that students, by using electronic signatures, would be able to use the Internet for most transactions with their institutions. For example, students could use the signatures to apply for admissions and for scholarships, register for courses, gain access to library journals and research materials, request transcripts, and even pay parking tickets and library fines. Some universities already encourage students to conduct campus business using electronic signatures, in a form known as a digital certificate. The University of Pittsburgh, for example, closed its on-campus computer store and is issuing as many as 50,000 digital certificates to students, administrators, and faculty and staff members so they can purchase computer equipment online. Because of the legislation approved by Congress last week, the university is preparing to roll out digital certificates for financial-aid transactions, said Robert F. Pack, the university's vice provost for academic planning and resource management. "We're delighted to see the bill," Mr. Pack said. He predicted that smart cards, resembling credit cards, might eventually replace the digital certificates in use at the university now. The cards, containing an encrypted electronic signature, would be inserted into a reader attached to a computer. At the Education Department, officials are hoping that the legislation will help them overcome the legal barriers they have faced in their efforts to allow students to use digital signatures to apply for federal aid. Government lawyers have worried that they won't be able to prosecute cases involving digital signatures unless each federal agency involved can guarantee that the people it is doing business with are who they say they are. The use of digital signatures would speed up the delivery of aid, department officials maintain. Currently, students using the department's electronic aid-application form, FAFSA on the Web, have to send the department a signature on paper to prove their identity. Since last fall, the department has been sending personal-identification numbers to those who have applied for aid. The department also uses the numbers in monitoring aid accounts and in reviewing applications for new grants and loans. The department had hoped to set up a Web page this spring on which prospective students could apply to receive a PIN to use the department's Web application -- and avoid having to send in signature pages separately. But Andrew J. Boots III, whose job title is champion for information security and privacy at the department, said the department has had to delay its plans because of continuing legal concerns over verifying the identity of those who apply for the numbers. The department is now hoping to offer PINs to prospective applicants by this fall. Mr. Boots said department officials are still hopeful that they will get the go-ahead before the new year to allow aid applicants to identify themselves using digital signatures. "We are anxious to do it because we believe that the payoff for students and colleges will be substantial," he said. "But we do not want to create a new avenue for fraud."
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 House votes to freeze spending on cultural endowments N.L.R.B. lets stand decision allowing professors at a private college to unionize Ethicists wary of Boston U.'s role in venture to sell analyses of Framingham heart study Security breaches could cost U. of California its Los Alamos contract, energy secretary says Texas A&M; University will suspend its annual bonfire till 2002 U. of Michigan to divest itself of tobacco stocks Appeals court denies workers'-compensation claim by paralyzed athlete Stanford U. removes ads from football stadium and basketball arena Peru plans university in the Amazon with environmental focus More Asian universities join boycott of magazine's rankings Colleges hail a bill giving electronic signatures legal status South African universities grapple with the growth of distance learning |
Copyright © 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education