Since 1999, the IT security organization TeleTrusT Germany eV has invited innovative European companies and institutions to compete for their prestigious "Innovation Award". This award honors the application of electronic signatures in Europe. The award aims to reflect the objectives of TeleTrusT in promoting best practice in trustworthy electronic commerce. The award winners since 1999 are representative for the range of applications leveraging electronic signatures from B2C (Business to Consumer) and B2B (Business to Business). They have implemented excellent examples of how processes may be accelerated based on a secure electronic data exchange. The TeleTrusT Innovation Award 2009 was awarded as part of the international IT security conference "Information Security Solutions Europe" (ISSE) in The Hague on October 7.
The Spanish Savings Banks Confederation (Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, CECA) received the first prize for their project titled "Digitalized Signature for financial sector branches". The award was received by Mr. José Luis Martín Velayos, Deputy CEO of Caja de Avila, and Mr. Santiago Uriel Arias, Cooperation CIO of CECA. The prize honors the innovative hybrid approach for authentication purposes which uniquely combines the benefits of Biometrics, cryptography and PKI. The basic idea is "Taking Signatures Seriously - make signature biometrics meet digital signatures". CECA's project was seen as very convincing and actively pushed in 2009.
Since the beginning of this year more than 10.000 tablets and software for signature capture went into production at workstations in Spanish savings banks. Signature tablets of the type SignPad eSignio are by far the first choice for Spanish savings banks. Softpro had developed the SignPadeSignio jointly with its long-term partner Wacom and is sometimes referred to under the name Wacom STU-500. E-Signing is expected to save Millions of Euros annually in the branches of Spanish Savings Banks. The task of digitizing and verifying handwritten signatures is supported intensively in this long-term project by TeleTrusT member Softpro. CECA’s supplier Softpro has published a report about the application which is available for download in English and German at its website.
>> Report about digitizing of handwritten signatures in Spanish Savings Banks
SignPads are in use today in many verticals outside the financial sector - in retail at the POS (furniture, fashion, telecommunication) in energy supply or in medical practices.
Spanish Solution largely inspired by application in German Savings Banks
"We were happy to benefit from our best practice information exchange with the German Savings Banks Association especially their processing centre Finanz Informatik and her customer Berliner Sparkasse which has rolled out a corresponding system in spring 2008", says Santiago Uriel Arias, Technology Vicesecretary (CIO) of CECA's Commission of Organization, Automation and Services (COAS). Uriel continues: "Besides generating attractive paybacks electronic signing is a very vital asset in CECA's overall Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. We and the environment benefit from a significant reduction in paper usage and have created a truly "green workflow" thanks to Softpro's SignPad hardware and their SignWare software." Softpro's CEO Heinz Reschke adds "Winning this prize confirms that the demand for innovative eSigning solutions is growing significantly. We are proud to be a part of CECA's solution that has enabled them to cut so much cost and demonstrated a true cutting edge solution"
Additional winners from Germany and the United Kingdom
The second winner was Sirrix AG for the solution "Trusted VPN System" - a distributed system for trusted Virtual Private Networks which is easy to administrate. Unlike other network encryption solutions, it uses a TPM embedded security core, integrated with virtualization technologies, the entire security services on a single hardware platform, and is thus protected against network attacks. In addition, the management of the VPN system is simple and is therefore particularly suitable for highly distributed organizations. Two companies tied for third place: Bundesdruckerei for their 'Modern Identity Management - Car Registration Scenario' and ObjectSecurity Ltd. for their application security tool 'Open PMF 2.0'.
>> Trusted VPN System von Sirrix
>> Website of Bundesdruckerei
>> Website of Object Security
Selection Criteria for the TeleTrusT Innovation Award
Selection criteria for the TeleTrusT Innovation Award 2009 were in order of weighting: the degree of innovation, benefit to the user, the compliance with standards and the exemplary character of the submitted proposal at the national, European and global level. The TeleTrusT Innovation Award is intended for European companies or institutions who develop or apply innovative and trusted information technology, software or online services for electronic applications in industry and government. The evaluation of potential prize winners was conducted by a high-profile, international jury. The jury investigated whether the security level of the of the application is appropriate and whether the security features are an integral part of the offered or used product. Particularly emphasis was placed on transparency and ease of use of integrated security features. In addition, emphasis is placed on interoperability and last but not least, that it can be proofed that the application offers measurable economic benefit.
About TeleTrusT
TeleTrusT was founded in 1989 as a non profit association to promote the trustworthiness of information and communication technology in systems environment. Today TeleTrusT counts 100 institutional members. Within the last 20 years TeleTrusT evolved to a well-known and highly regarded competence network for applied cryptography and biometrics. In various TeleTrusT working groups ICT-security experts, users and interested parties meet each other in frequent workshops, round-tables and expert talks. The activities focus on reliable and trustworthy solutions complying with international standards, laws and statutory requirements.
>> Website TeleTrusT
About Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros (CECA)
The Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks (Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros, CECA) is the National Association of 45 Spanish savings banks. All of them are involved in the project "Firma Digitalizada". These savings banks have 25.000 branches in the Spanish territory and process more than one Billion transactions/contracts per year. CECA is also a credit institution with no specific limitation which provides the Savings Banks and other subjects who act in the market with very competitive products and services within the technological and financial area.
>> Website Confederación Española de Cajas de Ahorros (CECA)
Information Security Solutions Europe (ISSE)
Europe's only independent, interdisciplinary security conference and exhibition. In 2009 the event was held from October 6th to October 8th in the Kurhaus Scheveningen in The Hague, Netherlands. ISSE is renowned for its rich content and unbiased perspective, designed to educate and inform ICT security professionals, policy makers, and industry leaders on the latest developments in technology, solutions, market trends and best practice. ISSE 2009 attracted more than 250 representatives from across Europe. ISSE is jointly organized by eema, the European Association for e-Identity and Security, and TeleTrusT Deutschland e.V. Patron of the conference is ENISA (European Network & Information Security Agency). The first ISSE was held in 1999. In 2010 ISSE will be held again in Berlin presumably in October.
>> Website Information Security Solutions Europe (ISSE)
