A qualified trust service for transmitting electronic data that provides evidence of sending and receipt, with legal effect equivalent to registered postal mail.
Electronic Delivery (eDelivery), formally known as Electronic Registered Delivery Service, is a trust service that enables the secure transmission of electronic data between parties, providing evidence relating to the handling of the transmitted data, including proof of sending and receiving, and protecting against the risk of loss, theft, damage, or alteration. Under eIDAS, a Qualified Electronic Registered Delivery Service (QERDS) benefits from a legal presumption regarding the integrity of the data, the sending and receipt of the data by the identified sender and recipient, and the accuracy of the date and time of sending and receipt. This gives electronic delivery legal effects comparable to traditional registered postal mail.
eIDAS 2.0 retains and reinforces this trust service. In an increasingly digital regulatory environment, eDelivery is essential for formal communications that require legal proof of transmission: court filings, regulatory notifications, official correspondence between businesses and government, contract deliveries, and shareholder communications.
The service typically involves the identification of the sender and recipient (often using eID or qualified certificates), encryption of the data in transit, and the generation of qualified timestamps and receipts. For the EUDIW ecosystem, eDelivery may serve as a complementary channel for transmitting credentials, notifications, and official communications between wallet holders, relying parties, and attribute providers. For businesses, implementing eDelivery, particularly in its qualified form, reduces legal risk in formal communications, eliminates disputes about whether and when documents were sent or received, and supports compliance with regulatory requirements that mandate provable delivery of information.
Related Terms
Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP)
An entity granted qualified status by a national supervisory body, authorised to issue qualified certificates, signatures, seals, timestamps, and electronic attestations of attributes under eIDAS.
Trust ServicesElectronic Timestamp
An electronic attestation that binds data to a particular point in time, providing evidence that the data existed in a certain form at that moment.
Trust ServiceseIDAS 2.0
The revised EU regulation on electronic identification and trust services, updating the original 2014 eIDAS framework to mandate a European Digital Identity Wallet for all EU citizens.
Core RegulationTrusted List
An authoritative, machine-readable registry maintained by each Member State listing all qualified trust service providers and their services, forming the backbone of the eIDAS trust model.
Governance