Recital 66

(66) Many Member States have introduced national requirements for services providing secure and trustworthy electronic archiving in order to allow for the long-term preservation of electronic data and electronic documents, and associated trust services. To ensure legal certainty, trust and harmonisation across Member States, a legal framework for qualified electronic archiving services should be established, inspired by the framework of the other trust services set out in this Regulation. The legal framework for qualified electronic archiving services should offer trust service providers and users an efficient toolbox that includes functional requirements for the electronic archiving service, as well as clear legal effects when a qualified electronic archiving service is used. Those provisions should apply to electronic data and electronic documents created in electronic form as well as paper documents that have been scanned and digitised. When required, those provisions should permit the preserved electronic data and electronic documents to be ported on different media or formats for the purpose of extending their durability and legibility beyond the technological validity period, while preventing loss and alteration to the extent possible. When electronic data and electronic documents submitted to the electronic archiving service contain one or more qualified electronic signatures or qualified electronic seals, the service should use procedures and technologies capable of extending their trustworthiness for the preservation period of such data, possibly relying on the use of other qualified trust services established by this Regulation. In order to create preservation evidence where electronic signatures, electronic seals or electronic timestamps are used, qualified trust services should be used. To the extent that electronic archiving services are not harmonised by this Regulation, it should be possible for Member States to maintain or introduce national provisions, in accordance with Union law, relating to those services, such as specific provisions for services integrated in an organisation and only used for the internal archives of that organisation. This Regulation should not distinguish between electronic data and electronic documents created in electronic form and physical documents that have been digitised.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-10 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.