Intesa, a Kyndryl Company, issues qualified electronic seal for EPREL registration and verification

Affixing the e-seal will be mandatory for manufacturers and distributors starting March 2022

Turin, 1 March 2022 – Intesa (Havant Group), a company that supports businesses in digital transformation with compliant solutions for process digitization, issues the qualified electronic seal (QeSeal) valid for identification and EPREL registration purposes.

Starting March 2022, all manufacturers and distributors of electronic appliances will be required to confirm their identity on the EPREL (EU Product Database for Energy Labelling) website, the European Union database in which electronic appliances must be mandatorily registered for the issuance of the energy label, which is essential for trading these products within the EU.

By registering with EPREL, manufacturers and distributors will receive a PDF certificate already sealed by the EU, on which they must affix their organization’s qualified electronic seal before re-uploading the certificate to the portal.

Affixing the e-Seal will primarily serve to prove the existence and identity of the organization, and its registered office within the EU/EEA area or in Northern Ireland, while at the same time confirming the authorization for the individual representing the company (supplier admin) to act on behalf of the organization to register products in EPREL.

The qualified electronic seal issued by Intesa — a Certification Authority recognized by AgID (Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale, Italy’s Digital Agency) and, since June 2020, one of the European Qualified Trust Service Providers authorized to issue qualified certificates for the electronic seal (e-Seal) — can therefore be used by manufacturers and distributors of electronic appliances for identity registration and verification with EPREL.

«In June 2020, when Intesa obtained authorization to issue the qualified electronic seal, this could still be considered a new tool in the field of trust services» said Giuseppe Mariani, General Manager of Intesa. «With the introduction of this requirement, the European Union confirms the importance and potential of these services for European trade, and we hope they will become increasingly widespread within EU directives to create a genuine digital single market that is also secure and certified.»

The qualified electronic seal is in fact governed by the European eIDAS Regulation on digital identity, and can be compared to a “qualified electronic signature” issued in the name of the company or organization, whose purpose is to electronically seal the company’s documents, workflows, or content in order to certify their origin, authenticity, and integrity. A document or other content sealed with a qualified electronic seal provides strong, legally significant proof of the origin and content of what has been signed.