Services

Access to documents with DRM

What is DRM?

DRM (Digital Rights Management), is the system used by Banco de España to protect documents with sensitive information. Documents protected with this system are encrypted and have access controls mechanisms in place. These protect the files and their information regardless of the channel through which they are transmitted or the location where they are stored.

Using DRM access controls, Banco de España can define who has permissions to access these documents, as well as what actions can be carried out (see, edit, print, copy/paste). Likewise, Banco de España can revoke these permissions, in real time.

DRM also provides with Banco de España of an audit trail that can be used to analyse access to documents.

Who uses this system?

Banco de España staff members can use this system to protect documents that they wish to share with external counterparties.

Consequently, all external counterparties that have received a document from Banco de España which is protected with DRM will have to use the system to access its contents.

How can one access a document which is protected with DRM?

In order to access a DRM-protected document you must:

  • Have access to the DRM-protected document.
  • Register to the service as an external user.
  • Use one of the available options to access DRM-protected document. The available options are:
    • DRM Desktop: a stand-alone application that can be installed in a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system.
    • DRM Web: a web-based document viewer. Since the viewer can run in any standard web browser, it does not require any installation and can be used in a variety of personal computers and mobile devices.

What are the differences between DRM Desktop and DRM Web?

We recommend the use of DRM Web if you just need to view (but not modify) Microsoft Office or PDF files protected with DRM. However, you will have to use DRM Desktop if you need to edit the files or if the file type is not compatible with DRM Web.

The following table shows the main differences between both applications.

Differences between DRM Desktop / DRM Web
  DRM Desktop DRM Web
Requires installation Yes (only on Microsoft Windows operating system) No
Allows viewing protected files Yes Yes
Allows editing, printing and other actions on protected files Yes (as long as the user has been granted permission for these operations) No
Compatible with non-Windows operating systems (Linux, MacOS) and mobile devices No Yes
File types compatibility Full
Admits any file format, although there are differences in the actions that can be executed in different file formats.		 Limited
(mainly Microsoft Office and PDF files)
Allows to visually identify, in my computer, if a file is protected with DRM before opening it Yes No
Requires specific software on my computer depending on the file type Yes No

For more information, please read the DRM Service user manuals you will find in the “Related information” section of this page.

Contact Us

Unidad de Ciberseguridad

Back