Business aspects of trusted third party services in Europe

The concept of "trusted services" forms a key issue for any type of electronic service. The author highlights the current business perspectives of the European trusted services market. In telehealth care, as in other kinds of services delivered via open networks, security plays a dominant role. The Business Environment Study of Trusted Services (BESTS) indicates that trusted services are essential for Europe's growth into the information society, and that therefore it should have native competence in trusted services. E-commerce and e-services are really taking off to such an extent that all of them need trusted third-party services to organize their business in a proper way. The main players traditionally consist of the certification authorities, insurance companies, postal and telecommunication services, governments, banks, chambers of commerce, and so on. Although regulation is still very unclear, many pilot projects are being launched, but there are very few real implementations at the moment. In any case, the author anticipates that trusted services are entering into a growth market.