As a European Union (EU) Member State, Denmark is governed by Regulation No. 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS). For more information on eIDAS, please read the Electronic Signature Laws & Regulations in the EU.
Overview
Electronic signatures and certificate-based digital signatures are commonly used in Denmark and a number of Danish court cases have looked at the validity of electronic signatures.
The key laws in Denmark that regulate the use of electronic signatures include:
- The Act on Supplementing Provisions which regulates the enforcement of the provisions of the eIDAS Regulation; and
- The Danish Contracts Act which governs the conclusion of contracts in general, regardless of the medium on which the contract is concluded.
The enforcement of contracts signed electronically in Denmark mainly comes down to the “will of the parties” and whether said will can be proven before the courts. Generally, Danish courts are free to assess all evidence presented before them. In practice, proving the validity of an electronic signature may happen by presenting the signed document together with the correspondence between the parties. Thus, electronic signatures that include identity validation, such as electronic signatures backed by digital certificates, will normally be considered to provide stronger evidence of validity.
In a report from the Danish Ministry of Justice, the Ministry states that electronic signatures complying with the Public Certificates to Electronic Services (the OCES standard) should be considered equivalent to a wet signature. Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) as defined by the eIDAS regulation are already considered equivalent to a wet signature.
In Denmark, the following documents are only directly executable before the Danish Enforcement Courts if they are signed by an Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) or a QES with a security level considered “substantial” or “high” under Article 8 of the eIDAS Regulation or the Danish OCES standard:
- Out of court settlements;
- Instruments of debt in which it is explicitly stated that the document can be used as basis for enforcement proceedings without a court order or other basis of enforcement;
- Agreement reserving ownership until payment is made (e.g., a conditional sale).
Electronic signatures are often used with the widely accepted Danish identity verification solution NemID, which is maintained by Nets DanID. A person needs to be a Danish citizen to obtain a NemID. The advantage of NemID is that it is intended to provide a secure validation of identity of the person signing the document. Banks and public authorities generally use NemID when interacting with Danish citizens. In addition, MitID is the national Danish eID and complies with the eIDAS regulation as a qualified trust service. MitID is the new common secure login method on the Internet. Unlike NemID, MitID is only used for authentication whereas digital signatures will take place in the NemLog-in infrastructure. MitID and NemLog-in3 are managed by the Danish Agency for Digitalisation (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen).
Denmark also has a number of standards that implement the requirements of the eIDAS regulation, such as the Public Certificates to Electronic Services (the OCES standard) and the National Standard for the Security Level of Identities (the NSIS standard). The standards are relevant primarily to the NemID and MitID solutions. The NSIS standard implements the security levels described in Article 8 of the eIDAS regulation.
EU Member States have the obligation to establish, maintain and publish trusted lists of Qualified Trust Service Providers (QTSPs) and the qualified trust services provided by them. A QTSP certified in any EU Member State will be recognized as a QTSP by all other Member States. Accordingly, no EU Member State may question the qualified status once a QTSP has been added to the trusted list by the supervisory authority of another Member State. The list of QTSPs for Denmark is available at: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/tl-browser/#/tl/DK. Currently, only Nets DanID is certified as a QTSP in Denmark and issues certificates that comply with all four certificate policies. Organizations that wish to become a certified QTSP must meet the QTSP requirements and send an application to the Danish Agency for Digitalization (in Danish: Digitaliseringsstyrelsen).
Special Considerations
Transacting with public sector entities
Digital interaction with Danish public authorities often requires the use of NemID or MitID.
Use cases that generally require a traditional signature
In Denmark, the following documents cannot be signed or executed electronically:
- Bearer bonds
- Wills or other documents that require notarization or witnessing.
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