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

Law vs Electronic Commerce

A great deal of uncertainty surrounds the impact of the continuing growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) on existing law.

While commercial law has evolved over the centuries in response to the development of trade in goods and services, within or across nations, the emergence of an electronic medium (‘cyberspace’) as an additional avenue for trade has pushed to the fore many questions: whether and how an adaption of existing law would possible, appropriate or sufficient to catch up with the problems thrown up by the new medium.

For one thing, the nature and effects of transactions that would ordinarily have been taken for granted had they occurred on non-electronic media confound established notions of commercial law.

Secondly, the unpredictability of the ultimate consequence of such transactions to the respective trading partners, who would be more likely to come from different jurisdictions, prompts scrutiny of preexisting, widely accepted formulations in domestic trade law, custom and treat among nations.

A major feature of the emergent situation that the impact of e-commerce on the law has not been across the board, simply because e-commerce has not been developing evenly.

Most transactions ton date relate to the purchase of computer hardware or software or the supply of information of various types; plain news, financial data, entertainment, education, travel, advertisement, health and DIY tips.

These item have one characteristic, namely the buyers’ lack of interest in, or disregard of, any need to have to conduct checking r inspection prior to purchase, or at any rate, before delivery.

In light of the general uncertainty surrounding the status of the online buyer and seller, the relevant law and of how it might be applied on behalf of a buyer claiming redress, the purchase of “safe” items acquires as precautionary significance.

In other words, the very nature of the involved in the transactions seems to rule out any fundamental failure that cold surface at a later stage and necessitate the intervention of the law to resolve the consequence of that failure.

Obviously, once money has passed form buyer to the seller, the path to recovery of that money, let alone further damages as would be expected under normal contract law, could be too complicated for the buyer to understand or pursue.

What makes the flight of an on-line buyer who seeks redress intractable is that solutions to online legal disputes are only just evolving in bits and pieces. New rules have begun to emerge in the form of statuary reforms in single jurisdiction or through case decisions on disputes arising from on-line transaction.
Law vs Electronic Commerce