eIDAS (for “electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services”) is an European Union regulation.
eIDAS is regulated in EU Regulation 910/2014, that derogated EU Directive 1999/93/CE.
It is completely applied since 1 July 2016.
Types of certifications:
- Physical Person
- Representative of Juridical Person
- Representative of entity without juridical representation
- Representative of single and joint administrator
Each member states is compelled to choose a supervision organization. In the case of Spain in 2018, it is the Secretaría de Estado para la Sociedad de la Información y la Agenda
Digital, from the Ministerio de Energía, Turismo y Agenda Digital.
Electronic Signature Formats compatible with eIDAS
eIDAS compelled the creation of electronic signature formats in order to comply with eIDAS regulation:
- XAdES
- CAdES
- PAdES
You can read this post about digital signature, including digital signature formats.
There is no signature format compatible with PKCS #7, as it was considered outdated when compared to CMS and it did not include some necessary compatibilities.
eIDAS defines baseline formats where a signature format has a level. (e.g. CAdES 8-level).
There is a table that informs the equivalence between the signature format+level and signature profile. Example: CAdES-BES is equivalent to CAdES 8-Level.