illegal nature of the content, when notified by a user or a relevant authority, then the ISP would be expected to remove or disable access to such content promptly in order to preserve their immunity, until such time as a determination is made as to the legality of the content. The Task Force recommends that Partner States give consideration to the adoption of rules to protect communication intermediaries from liability for third-party content, subject to certain conditions (R.11). 2.1.6 Institutional implications The Task Force recognises that as a facilitating measure, the electronic transactions law is likely to have a more significant impact and be adopted more rapidly and widely by business, consumers and administrative bodies if responsibility for implementation of the law was given to a relevant national agency, which could champion use of the law. In order for the EAC to keep abreast and take advantage of emerging opportunities in cyberspace, the Task Force recommends that • • 2.2 Partner States should endeavour to research and implement institutional reforms to provide for policy formulation, implementation, regulations and private sector participation; Consideration is given to institutional reforms at the EAC Secretarial level to carry forward emerging challenges in legal framework with respect to cyberlaw issues (R.12). Electronic Signatures and Authentication As noted above, electronic signatures raise two distinct issues; whether they are valid in terms of meeting requirements for the use of a ‘signature’, and whether they can appropriately authenticate the party executing the signature and ensure the integrity of the contents of the document to which the signature relates. The former issue of validity has been addressed in section 4.1 above. The latter concerns the security functionality of the signature process. There are inevitably concerns that electronic communications may not be sufficiently secure, such that someone may pretend to be someone they are not or amend the content of a document in a manner that is difficult if not impossible to discern. To what extent is it therefore appropriate to specifically address the security of electronic signatures in an electronic transaction law? Over recent years, considerable attention has been given to the possible use of digital signatures, using public-key cryptography, often supported through the use of third party certificates that verify that the sender is the legitimate holder of the relevant key. In some jurisdictions, this technology and methodology has been given express recognition in primary legislation, such as electronic transactions legislation. Such legislation details the criteria that the electronic signature should meet if it is to be given legal recognition and conferred with beneficial legal presumptions. The criteria that an electronic signature is expected to meet in order to be accepted in law as functionally equivalent to a traditional handwritten signature will sometimes 13