2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TEN - Commerce (§§ 1 — 4196) › Subtitle 3 - Business Regulations Generally (§§ 2001-2016 — 4196) › Chapter 312 - Electronic Transactions Act (§§ 4081 — 4096) › § 4081 - Definitions

For the purposes of this chapter, the following terms shall have the meaning stated hereinbelow:
(1) Agreement.— Means an arrangement between the parties, arising from an express contractual language, or which may be inferred from the circumstances of the specific transaction and the rules, regulations, legislation or procedures applicable to said transaction which have a binding effect over the parties.
(2) Electronic agent.— Means an electronic data message or other automated or electronic means that may be used to initiate an action or to respond to a message, document or transaction without the need for intervention or review by any natural person at the time the action is initiated or a response is given to the message, document or transaction.
(3) Certification authority.— Any juridical person that may produce, issue, cancel, or revoke digital certificates used in electronic signatures, which holds a self-signed digital certificate that allows for the establishment of a certification route between digital certificates subordinated to or created by the same.
(4) Registration authority.— Any juridical person that may receive and verify the personal data of any natural or juridical person that requests a certification authority to produce, issue, cancel, and/or revoke a digital certificate.
(5) Consumer.— Means a person who acquires or uses products and services for his/her own use and consumption or the use and consumption of his/her family or home.
(6) Contract.— Means the legal obligation that arises from the agreement between the parties, pursuant to this chapter and any other applicable laws.
(7) Document.— Means the information inscribed on tangible media or stored in electronic media, retrievable in a perceptible manner.
(8) Electronic document.— Means a file created, generated, sent, communicated, received or stored in any type of electronic media.
(9) Electronic.— Means any technology with electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optic or electromagnetic capability, or which operates in a similar manner.
(10) Government entity.— Means the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches and the municipalities of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a state of the United States or the federal government or any division, subdivision, department, instrumentality, commission, board, public corporation or authority attached to the same.
(11) State.— Means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or any territory subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. This term includes tribes or Indian groups, or Alaskan villages recognized by a federal law or formally by a State of the United States.
(12) Digital signature.— A kind of electronic signature that is represented as a set of data, sounds, symbols, or processes in electronic form, created by a private key that uses an asymmetric technique to ensure the data message’s integrity through a verification code, as well as the link between the owner of a digital signature and the data message sent. In converting a message with a digital signature, the person who has the initial message or communication and the public keyof the signer can determine accurately whether:
(a) The conversion was made by using the private key that corresponds to the signer’s public key.
(b) The message or communication has been altered since the conversion was made.
(13) Electronic signature.— The totality of data in electronic format consigned in a message, document or electronic transaction, or attached or logically associated with said message, document or transaction, that may be used to identify the signatory to identify the signatory and indicate that he/she approves the information contained in the message, document or transaction.
(14) Information.— Means data, text, images, sounds, codes, software programs, databases and any other similar information.
(15) Person.— Means an individual, corporation, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, government entity, public corporation or any other legal or commercial entity.
(16) Security procedure.— Means the procedure used to verify that the electronic signature, file or action corresponds to a certain person, or to detect changes or errors in the information contained in an electronic document. It also includes any procedure that requires the use of algorithms or other methods of identification, such as codes, identification words or numbers, encryptions, calls or any other recognition procedures.
(17) Computer program.— Means a set of instructions to be used directly or indirectly in an information processing system in order to achieve a specific result.
(18) Information processing system.— Means the electronic system used to create, generate, send, receive, store, display or process information.
(19) Transaction.— Means the acts or set of acts between two or more persons with respect to government, commercial or business matters.
(20) Automated transaction.— Means a transaction conducted, in whole or in part, by electronic means or through electronic documents, in which the acts or documents of at least one of the parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course of executing a contract, performing under an existing contract, or fulfilling an obligation required by the transaction.
(21) Consumer transaction.— Means the act or acts between two or more persons with respect to, or mainly related to the personal, family or home use of any of these persons.
History —Aug. 8, 2006, No. 148, § 2; Oct. 25, 2010, No. 155, §§ 1, 2.