The National Authority for Communications (ANC) adopted two decisions today, opening the way to document dematerialization: the decision regarding the technical and methodological rules for the enforcement of Law no. 451/2004 on time stamp and the decision on the checking and homologation procedure for electronic invoicing information systems.
”The Romanian economy should have long benefited from the advantages of the Information Society, which means that paper becomes of secondary importance, while electronic documents are the first choice. The decisions adopted today have gone through a long public consultation both at the national and at the European level, but they reflect primarily the consultations with the Romanian industry. We have performed great diligence so that these documents – which the Ministry of Economy and Finance had to endorse – should be back on track and adopted as regulations as soon as possible”, Mr. Liviu Nistoran declared.
As regards electronic invoicing, the ANC decision establishes a simpler homologation procedure, based on an audit opinion issued by an independent third party, which ascertains that the information system under homologation features the three basic components of the Information Society: integrity, confidentiality and availability of the data in the system. The decision establishes also the terms for the independent auditors.
The information systems used by the entities who electronically issue, transmit or archive invoices, receipts and fiscal receipts must comply with certain minimum performance and security requirements. The homologation process will check the observance of these requirements.
The Romanian legal framework (Law no.260/2007 on recording commercial operations by electronic means, Law no.135/2007 on electronic archiving, the Fiscal Code and the corresponding enforcement rules, the new regime for numbering and issuing invoices, the lags on electronic signature, time stamp and electronic Notary Public) provides for the transition towards the digital processing of commercial and financial-accounting operations. Electronic invoices shall be issued no sooner than the Ministry of Economy and Finance adopts the enforcement rules for Law no.260/2007, which fall within their responsibility, but the information systems could be assessed for homologation once with the entry into force of the ANC decision adopted today.
”Electronic invoicing may be used in all the fields that involve financial transactions, with obvious advantages: it will help commercial operators save on costs, increasing process efficiency and allowing the users to get rid of paper documents and avoid the associated storing and sending effort. Moreover, the document security and confidentiality level will rise”, the ANC President added.
Time stamp is a service by means of which an electronic document is indexed with a set of data that guarantee that the respective document existed in the respective format, at a certain moment. Time stamp is required in view of document authentication and has practical importance for: electronic commerce, electronic signature, electronic Notary Public, electronic archiving and electronic invoicing.
According to the decision adopted today, any entity that notifies ANC 30 days before the estimated start of its activity may become a provider of time stamp services. Alongside the notification, time stamp providers shall communicate ANC the data regarding the security procedures they are to use, the measures envisaged in order to protect personal data, as well as any other data requested by the Authority. At the beginning of its operations, the provider shall prove the quality as a personal data processor.