The U.S. Postal Service has signed an agreement with a subsidiary of
Schenectady, N.Y.-based
AuthentiDate Holding Corp.to provide the USPS Electronic
Postmark (EPM) service.
The service, using sophisticated encryption technology, provides evidence
that the content of an electronic document or file existed at a specific date
and time, and “ensures that it cannot be altered without detection,” the
company said.
The AuthentiDate subsidiary said it will
provide the management, technology and support for the Postal Service’s EPM offering. Financial terms
were not disclosed.
AuthentiDate said it will implement EPM as an XML-based Web service that
can be added to any application regardless of the computing platform or
operating system (including IBM’s WebSphere and Microsoft’s .NET initiative).
“Americans trust the Postal Service when they communicate via hardcopy mail,”
said Deputy Postmaster General John M. Nolan. “We believe that the USPS
Electronic Postmark adds a comparable level of trust to electronic
correspondence and transactions.”
Citing figures from ICANN (the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers), John Botti, CEO of AuthentiDate Holding,
said that of an estimated
3 trillion electronic exchanges annually, an estimated 5 percent, or 150
billion are candidates for the electronic time and date stamping service.
AuthentiDate Holding has five business units: DocStar, AuthentiDate
International AG, AuthentiDate Inc., DJS Marketing Group/Computer
Professionals International and Trac Medical Solutions.