Extension of Implementation Period under the Communiqué on Technical Criteria for Electronic Signatures

The Communiqué Amending the Communiqué on Electronic Signature Processes and Technical Criteria (“Amendment Communiqué”), which aims to extend the implementation period set forth under Article 6(2) of the Communiqué on Electronic Signature Processes and Technical Criteria (“Communiqué”), was published in the Official Gazette dated 4 October 2025 and numbered 33345, and entered into force on the same date.

Article 6 of the Communiqué stipulates the technical standards regarding electronic signature creation, verification data as well as hashing algorithms, and obliges electronic certificate service providers (“ECSP”) to operate their systems in compliance with these standards. As the current version of the article, the signature creation and verification data should comply with the ETSI TS 119 312 standard; furthermore, specific key lengths are prescribed for algorithms based on RSA, DSA, or Elliptic Curve cryptography, and the use of hashing algorithms from the SHA2 or SHA3 families is mandated.

Pursuant to the Communiqué published in the Official Gazette dated 6 January 2005 and numbered 25692, the validity period of the algorithms and parameters specified under this provision had previously been extended from 31 December 2022 to 31 December 2025 by an earlier amendment. With the latest Amendment Communiqué, the period granted for compliance with these technical standards has now been extended until 31 December 2027.

The provisions of this Communiqué shall be executed by the President of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority.