Aloaha Ltd, which is located in Pembroke, is an international developer of document security and smart card software and will be exhibiting its full range of products at the most prestigious trade fair of Digital Technology, CeBIT in Hanover, Germany between 4 and 9 March.

Last year CeBIT had an attendance of 500,000 visitors. Considered as the world’s biggest trade fair as well as the annual meeting place for the entire ICT industry, CeBIT’s headline for this year is “Improving Life for the Global Village”.

With this in mind, leading edge technology providers, research institutes and academia will all be meeting in one place to offer their exceptional expertise to all areas of society - government agencies, industry and private people.

One important motivation in the ICT business is keeping track of new legal and policy developments. One case in point is the EU’s deadline for 2010, when the EU’s European e-ID Management Framework comes into force. Also of great importance is the EU-wide launching of e-Health cards.

In fact, Stefan Engelbert of Aloaha Ltd has been collaborating with the German Health authorities in drafting the standards of electronic signatures for medical correspondence. Under EU law, for an electronic signature to be legally binding, it is important that the signature provides authentication of the party who created it and ensures that what was signed cannot be altered.

Also important is that the party is able to keep an original of the data and the electronic signature for his own records. For an electronic signature to be issued it needs a driver, a smart card (which is considered the most secure device with respect to authentication purposes), a qualified certificate issued by a Certificate Service Provider and finally interface software like the Aloaha Card Connector to finalise the signing of the document.