Identification and Authentication of the Parties

Identification and Authentication of the Parties
One of the major problems that contracting on the Net faces is the difficulty of establishing the identity of the party who is on the other side of the transaction.

The exchange of valuables which is at the heart of contract law losses meaning if the parties exchanging them do not exactly know that there is somebody at the other side who is what she claims to be.

This is not necessarily because of any need to know the other person’s particulars or in view of future business prospects, but to be sure that if anything goes wrong the party claiming redress knows how to get to or communicate with that other party.

In contract law terms, the innocent party should have sufficient information about the party in default or alleged breach of the contract so as to pursue her claims against that party successfully.

The problem of not being able to establish the identity of a person transacting on the Net readily is made worse by the use of ‘remailers’ nor ‘anonymizers.’

These are software programs which can cloak the identity of a contracting party by either removing or replacing the actual address from which a party is sending messages so that it becomes impossible to trace that party.

From a practical angle, where such software is used the party that pays for goods in the Net but does not received the goods will not be able to establish of the seller is real or a phantom or whether she is residing at the specified origin of the electronic communication of acceptance or notice of delivery.

Another way on which a party may be prevented from establishing the identity of the other side is “spoofing,” that is use by the latter party of identity or account of another person to masquerade as that other person.

This is done not only by faking the identity of another party, but also by altering or falsifying e-mails so that the identity of a non-transacting party is assumed.

There are several spy programs that monitor the keystrokes of people to imitate their identity and misrepresent them.

It is therefore vital for contracting parties to know, and have confidence that the other parity is genuine and fits the description that she has supplied about herself during the transaction.

The common use of passwords as a means of identity authentication has been found to be deficient, open as it is to deliberate or inadvertent disclosure, backing or some other means of intervention or eavesdropping.

Among the more reliable emerging forms of authentication of parties employing electronics means of transactions is the use of digital signature technology.

Biometric techniques (such as fingerprinting, handwriting or voice recognition, retinal, or hand geometry scanning) are still in a process of development or immensely expensive to adopt at the moment.
Identification and Authentication of the Parties