The Italian Chamber of Deputies has approved the so-called “Simplifications Decree” which contains the legal definitions of “distributed ledger technologies” (DLT) and smart contracts, with the related guidelines.
The Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale (AgID) will be responsible for identifying the technical standards that these technologies must have in order to be defined as such.
The purpose is to legally recognize a computer document recorded on a blockchain (or other DLT) and, in particular, to give legal value to electronic time validation.
Therefore, although these definitions are now to be considered State law, they are not yet applicable due to the fact that there are no technical definitions.
It will be AgID that will establish what concrete requirements these technologies must have in order to be able to fall within this definition, which is now part of the Italian Civil Code.
However, the doubts expressed by some experts have not been resolved, and everything is postponed to the decisions of the AgID.
Curiously enough, the group of blockchain experts selected by the Ministry of Economic Development (MiSE) have not been asked about it yet: tomorrow the group will hold a second meeting, but the text approved is now law.
Certainly, the MiSE experts will be able to lend a hand to AgID for the identification of technical specifications, and it is not excluded that they may even advise Parliament on changes to the approved text.
In other words, the process has only just begun and several more steps will be needed before these new rules can be fully applied.
