Legal aspects of the custody of electronic documents

Abstract

The legal nature of document custody changes when it moves from paper documents to electronic ones. With the current Spanish regulation, it no longer constitutes a deposit agreement, although many of the depositary's obligations continue to be applicable. On the other hand, it can be considered as a service of the information society and therefore is applicable the liability regime established for them in the Spanish Law of Services for the Information Society, and also as a processing of data on behalf of third party, when documents contain personal data. However, the most important changes are due to the constitution by the eIDAS European Union Regulation of the preservation of electronic signatures and electronic stamps as a trust service. The emergence of this new figure raises numerous questions about who are the agents indicated to carry out each of the functions associated with the preservation of authentic electronic records for extended periods of time.