Time stamping

Time stamping is an on-line mechanism that enables us to demonstrate that a data series has existed and has not been altered as of a specific point in time. A Time Stamping Authority such as Edicom acts as a trusted third party testifying to the existence of said electronic data at a specific date and time. The standard protocol that defines this service is described in RFC 3161 and is in the Internet standards register.

Service Operation Summary

The Digital Time stamping service is one of the electronic signature services provided by Edicom as Certification Authority.

The process is initiated by the client who wishes to obtain the time stamp for a given document. To do so, their application must obtain the "summary" or hash of the document and send it to Edicom in predetermined standard message format. At this point, the client may need a solution that provides integration with their Management system, as well as transformation services, hash obtaining and finally Web Service communications. Edicom can also provide an integral solution for this process.

Once the document is received by Edicom , the time stamp is applied. To this end, the service has a time source synchronised with Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). In addition, the Edicom signature as Certification Authority will be included in the document as well as the certificate and returned to the client. As a result of this message, the applicant will have a Time Stamp verifiable by anyone and difficult to falsify, which certifies the existence or presentation of said document at the time indicated by the stamp and can check that the original document has not been altered since its presentation.

Additionally Edicom has an escrow service of documents that allows users who wish to store the originals along with time stamp for the time needed. This service is supported on platforms operated in environments of high availability and with the reliability provided by the Certification Authority.