Mobile Electronic Signatures: Progression from Mobile Service to Mobile Application Unit

Since the electronic signature market in Europe got legal support in the form of EU Directive 1999/93/EC[1], various mobile signature service (MSS) architectures, which imply an intermediary role for MSS Providers, have been developed accordingly to those days´ technical implementation possibilities. Today, the advanced level of mobile technology allows for more efficient architectures of mobile services and applications. In this paper, we propose a new architecture for mobile services which integrates the use of mobile signatures. This architecture comprises the whole mobile signature service as an application unit on mobile devices. We also discuss the integration rules of this unit in various mobile services and applications.