Legally binding signatures

As technology advances, expressing legal intent electronically is gradually replacing the need for physical document signing. According to EU and U.S. regulations, electronically signed documents carry full legal force.

image

International law

The legal validity of electronic signatures and electronically signed documents is recognized across major jurisdictions, including the European Union and the United States.

EU Regulation No. 910/2014 (eIDAS Regulation: Regulation on electronic identification and trusted services for electronic transactions in the united market) recognizes the legal status of electronic signatures as evidence, ensuring they cannot be dismissed in legal proceedings merely because they are in electronic form.

In the U.S., key regulations like ESIGN (United States Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce) and UETA (Uniform Electronic Transactions Act) also uphold the legal force of electronic signatures and documents.

Comparison with material signature

In practice, in most cases, the material signature is not used in compliance with the 'complete rules' (when the signature is made in the presence of all parties, on all pages, the signer is visually identified, etc.). In most cases, parties deliver documents to each other by courier / mail. An even more common practice is to exchange scanned copies of documents by email. If we analyze the described cases, it will be hard to prove:

  • Who signed the document
  • The Integrity of signed document (that signer viewed and signed this particular document and it has not been changed since)
  • Exact time of a signature

On the other hand, an electronic signature through Signify provides much more evidences that are described in the evidence report (see above).

Audit trail

For each signed document Signify generates an Audit Trail, that contains the following information:

  • Signer's email address and/or mobile number
  • Signer's full name
  • IP address of the device used
  • Date and time of signing
  • The hash code of the signed document
  • Identifier of the technical device [personal computer, smart phone, etc.] and the version of the browser using which the signature is made

User can require each signer to authenticate with additional authentication methods like:

  • SMS OTP - Confirm signature with SMS one time password
  • Video identification - Identification by scanning gov-issued ID document and dynamic selfie match (Remote ID & Liveness)

Based on the mentioned information, the identity of the signer and the fact of signing are fully identifiable.

Any document uploaded to Signify is automatically converted to PDF format and is always stored in encrypted format.

The document signed and the Audit trail are both digitally signed that ensures the document integrity and prevents any changes to the documents after they've been signed.

All signatures are LTV enabled.

Security

Signify attaches special importance to the protection of its users' personal data or other sensitive information [commercial terms, content of the documents, etc.]. Detailed information can be found in our Privacy Policy.

We use Amazon Cloud Servers (AWS Cloud) based in Stockholm to store data. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Sweden is among countries where personal data is allowed to be safely stored.