Adobe : Helping Life Sciences Go All-Digital in the Cloud with Viky Manaila of Trans Sped

As part of our efforts to advance global standards for digital signatures, Adobe is partnering with a growing ecosystem of trust service providers (TSPs) like Trans Sped, who issue certificate-based digital IDs in compliance with the new Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC) open standard. We recently caught up with Viky Manaila, managing director of Trans Sped, to learn more about how Trans Sped- a leader in the field of biopharma compliance - is partnering with Adobe Sign to bring anytime, anywhere convenience to regulated signing processes that have been traditionally tied to desktop computers.

Helping life sciences go all-digital is a big task. What makes Trans Sped a stand out player in this field?

Trans Sped has more than ten years of extensive collaboration with the SAFE-BioPharma Association, partnering with the association to ensure that regulatory and legal requirements are aligned with business needs. In addition to providing certificate-based digital IDs, we offer advice and expertise to biopharma, life sciences, and healthcare organizations on how to go digital and stay compliant at the same time.

What is unique about Trans Sped's certificate-based digital ID services?

Varying Identity trust requirements have created a Tower of Babel - a confused mixture of interpretations and practices. There is no one best practice or set of guidelines for using interoperable digital identities. As a result, current business practices don't scale and don't lend themselves to ease of data sharing and analysis. Here's where we come in. Trans Sped offers CSC-compliant digital IDs that are eIDAS Qualified and cross-certified with the SAFE-BioPharma Bridge and the U.S. Federal PKI Bridge. We provide a single identity or 'passport' that is recognized across the pharma and healthcare ecosystem for its global acceptance, secure identity, strong security, full regulatory compliance and legal enforceability. Our certificates are cloud-stored and highly protected. Readers can click here to try a qualified cloud certificate. They have one month to see how it works. To use it, they simply need a mobile device, smartphone or tablet and the Trans Sped mobile app. No more tokens, drivers, installation - just click and sign!

How does Trans Sped work with Adobe to authenticate signers and issue certificates?

As a Qualified Trust Service Provider, we manage the certificate life cycle (e.g., user identification, enrollment, certificate generation, renewal and revocation) that is part of the Adobe Sign digital signature workflow. Together, our two companies provide a secure end-to-end workflow that offers the highest value implementation and advances the future of digitally-transformed business. Two trust frameworks in one solution - compliant, secure, legal, fully mobile and accessible from any platform on any device (laptop, smartphone, or tablet).

What made you want to be a part of the Cloud Signature Consortium?

Trans Sped has always tried to anticipate the technological evolution and offer its customers solutions that are up-to-date with both technological advancements and legal regulations. In 2008, together with SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), we deployed the first cloud-based digital certificate infrastructure that was SAFE-BioPharma-compliant. Since then we have been supporting the life sciences ecosystem. As a natural evolution, we have recently implemented the Cloud Signature Consortium specifications for digital signatures, in partnership with Adobe. Having solutions and services integrated with the world's first open standard digital signatures in the cloud is an incredible asset for our clients. They are now able to sign digitally and benefit from an extremely high user experience that is compliant at the same time with the most demanding requirements of eIDAS qualified electronic signatures.

Why is the Cloud Signature Consortium exciting for the industry?

You forget your watch, you forget your wallet, you don't always carry a laptop with you, your token is in the office, but most of the time you have your phone with you. You use it to communicate, to work, to read and everything else there is an app for. With the CSC's new open standard for cloud-based digital signatures, you now have the possibility to digitally sign documents with the same legal effect as a handwritten signature anytime from anywhere.

How is the CSC helping your country and the world?

Romania is a developing dynamic country. As such, the business environment is open to new solutions. And the digital revolution, which is poised to have one of the biggest impacts on the history of mankind, is at the heart of these new solutions. Artificial intelligence, social media, self-driving cars, cryptocurrencies, e-services are all changing the way we do business. In this context, digitization is no longer an option - it's a must. As to the world, a safer world is a better world and Trans Sped and Adobe are making safety more accessible to more people and companies.

What does the future hold for electronic signing and digital identity?

During the last 20 years of amazing technological evolution, innovation, and internet access, one thing has never changed - access based on username and password. Companies have huge budgets dedicated to building sophisticated 'walls' to secure their infrastructure and protect their information. This is good, but not enough. Organizations still rely on the old, outdated habit of username and password. Although we talk about disruptive technologies, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, the username and password habit remains the same since the invention of the modern internet. This needs to change. Data is a huge asset and, at the same time, a big responsibility, and it needs to be protected accordingly. Qualified digital certificates are a powerful solution to the problem of data security. They provide data integrity, non-repudiation, secure signer identification, legal enforceability, and regulatory compliance.