Legal Analysis of Factual and Evidential Aspects of Attribution of Data Message in Iranian Electronic Commerce Law

“Attribution of data message” is one of the most important issues in Iran's e-commerce law. Due to the novelty of the subject and the weakness of the relevant legal and technical literature, the subject could be improperly interpreted and understood. In this article, while analyzing articles 18 to 21 of the Electronic Commerce Law of Iran as well as proposing an amendment to the provisions of Article 19, an attempt is made to remove the ambiguities related to them. The precise concept, elements and factual and evidential aspects of “attribution of data message”, proposed methods in proving attribution, the concept and instances of the third party which have been impliedly and very vaguely provided in paragraph b of article 19, have been analyzed and discussed. Factual and evidential aspects of attribution of data message in the form of three assumptions; namely a method introduced by or agreed with the originator and the actions of the third party; have been explained and interpreted. Other important topics such as secure and insecure methods and secure procedure have been discussed: a secure procedure and its instances in proving attribution of data message could be technologically very sophisticated such as an asymmetric cryptographic system (using public key and private key) or could be as simple as a telephone call to confirm the identity of the sender through another channel of communication.