Italian pride, this time in information technology. Our Certified mail served as a model for building the PEC which will in all probability be called REM (Registered Electronic Mail) and should officially enter into force in the first months of next year. Will officially put “on the net” professionals, companies and above all (something that was missing, and of which the absolute need is felt) the public administrations, or the bureaucraciesof all the countries of the Union. Here, all those who are already obliged to have it, according to law 2/2009, will pass through the new PEC to exchange letters with the same value as a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt but also all operational documentation: public administration bodies, public and private companies, professionals, VAT numbers.
The establishment of the European PEC will certainly give a vigorous push to equip themselves with the new tool even for those who are not yet obliged to have it, considering that the new world of personal communications that have to do with officiality (from public services to bureaucracy, precisely) is being built around the combination of PEC, digital identity (which we manage through SPID) and a single document built around a chip that will most likely concentrate a growing amount of data in the new generation of identity cards electronics. But what exactly is the new European PEC? How does it work? What must we do to get it?
More international but also more protected
Until now, the Italian PEC has practically constituted a unique service in the world, even if something similar, but with much lower characteristics such as capacity and potential, has been tested in countries such as Switzerland, Germany and Hong Kong. Here, the standards and specifications of the PEC system are regulated by the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID), which among other things certifies and enables certified managers who we can turn to for the service.
Our PEC system was originally created to be able to offer the first layer of official certification of the service, i.e. that of replacing a registered letter with return receipt with legal value, guaranteeing delivery of delivery and delivery of the letter, this time electronically, in a intact and unaltered format, which therefore fully assumes legal value.
Over the years theEurope has defined the new and more stringent standards suitable for making it a tool that meets the highest security and guarantee criteria, taking into account the latest developments in information technology but also the growing risks of intrusion and manipulation of the digital world. To make it a qualified delivery service, legally valid throughout Europe, which fully meets a series of requirements such as the certainty of the integrity of the message content, the guarantee of the date and time of sending communications, the certification of the identity of both those who exchange messages and those who manage the service.
How the requirements change
The first two requirements were already met by the Italian PEC, even if the adaptation to the latest IT security criteria was lacking. On the other hand, as regards certain identification of the sender and recipient, the basic requirements of our PEC did not meet (and still do not meet) the maximum security criteria, which many service providers are however starting to introduce into their systems and into the validation procedures required of users, precisely to speed up alignment with the new European criteria. To do this, identification is being progressively requested through the various methods that are spreading for certified services: SPID (link: https://www.spid.gov.it/ ) level two, CIE (the electronic identity card), in some cases in combination with other identification tools such as the health card. An adjustment procedure which, however, is not mandatory to date: those who do not want to implement it yet can continue to use their "national" PEC for now (until they want or do not have to access the new "European" version) without the small complications of the additional validation, for example with the SPID.
The steps to take: few and simple
Having said that, there are two good news. The first: adapting your PEC to the new European standard makes it a little more complicated to manage but certainly even more secure and protected from intrusions, attacks and manipulations. The second: transforming our PEC into a "European" one is a matter of minutes. Everything is done online by accessing the portal of our PEC service provider, the one we chose when we decided or are preparing to activate our Certified Electronic Mail box. It is precisely a matter of implementing all the additional security and validation protocols envisaged, similar to those that are required of us, for example, by our bank for full online operations on our account: two-step verification, by entering personal codes ( username and password) to which must be added the validation of entry through SPID or CIE with temporary code sent from time to time, for example on our smartphone.
