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![handle is hein.gao/gaocrptadob0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
United States
General Accounting Office
Washington, D.C. 20548
Accounting and Information
Management Division
B-275391
November 19, 1996
Mr. John F. Wallace
Director of Resource Management
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Dear Mr. Wallace:
This letter responds to your October 2, 1996, request that we sanction the
operation of your electronic signature system for full-scale
implementation. We have reviewed the material provided by your staff,
and we conclude that the electronic signatures generated by this system
provide at least the same quality of evidence as the handwritten signatures
they are designed to replace.1 Specifically, your system produces
electronic signatures that are (1) unique to the signer, (2) under the
signer's sole control, (3) capable of being verified, and (4) linked to the
data in such a manner that if the data are changed, the signature is
invalidated upon verification.
Based on the materials provided by your staff and our observations during
this system development effort, we concur with the opinion of your
third-party reviewer who stated that the electronic signature system
provides a very robust implementation of the electronic signature
capability. In addition, we noted that the development of a system that
can be used by other agencies and applications was also one of the
original program objectives. The security review concluded that
This implementation, which is currently used by approximately 5,000 individuals (and is
projected to have tens of thousands of users in the future), provides an excellent model for
other computer systems in both the public and private sectors that require electronic
signatures on a widely distributed basis. Principles applied in the development and
implementation of the [electronic signature system] can be used in any number of
applications to provide authenticity and data integrity capabilities.
The ability of your electronic signature system to be used by other
agencies has also been demonstrated. It is our understanding that the
Department of State has decided to implement your electronic signature
system in one of its applications. According to the State Department
official who is responsible for that project, adoption of the Corps' system
allowed State to field a production system in about 6 months while
minimizing development risk and cost. We understand that other agencies
'We outlined the necessary attributes of electronic signatures in Comptroller General Decision 71
Comp. Gen. 109 (1991).
GAO/AIMD-97-18R Corps of Engineers Electronic Signature System
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