KUALA LUMPUR July 31 - A common legal framework legislating the adoption of digital signature (digicert) in e-commerce transactions is next to impossible, said Nor Azli Othman, chief executive officer of Digicert Sdn Bhd.

He told this to newsmen after his opening remarks at the ASEAN Certification Authority (CA) Forum for e-business today.

Certain countries, he added, would like to protect certain industries and every country has its own legislation system which may not be compatible to the implementation of a common legal framework on digicert.

Digicerts are a form of electronic identification and authentication tool to facilitate e-commerce on-line transactions where two interacting parties over the internet know each other's identity.

Currently, he said, Malaysia and Singapore were the only two ASEAN countries who had legal framework on digicert with the certification authority (CA) in practise.

However, the Malaysian legal framework on digicert stipulated under the Malaysian Digital Signature Act 1997 depends on definitions under the country's existing 50-year old contract law.

Singapore's legal framework on digicert, on the other hand, covers in-depth definitions on contract laws relating to e-commerce independently.

Digicert Sdn Bhd is the only licensed CA under the Malaysian Digital Signature Act 1997 and backed by two of the largest and trusted government organisations, namely Pos Malaysia Bhd and Mimos Bhd.