Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Technology

"It affects all the people who provide digital signatures and are exposed to digitally signed documents," said a spokesman for the State Information Systems Board Rauno Veri.

While currently, the DDOC file format is used, that was designed only for use within Estonia, the new format enables to sign documents in accordance with the rules in force in Europe.

For the ordinary user, this means that the so-called containers of the new digitally signed documents are much smaller, and it also makes it easier for viewing digital documents.

Problems may arise in the transition to the new system with institutions and companies that due to the high cost of development work won't manage to be ready in 8-12 months to accept the BDOC file format, and the user is in a situation where it is easier to manually forward documents to the needed institution.