You can use cloud signatures like those provided by DocuWare Signature Service completely independently of whether you use a cloud or on-premises system for your document management and workflows. The term cloud signature only describes that the Signature Service, like DocuWare Cloud, is hosted in Microsoft Azure data centers. With cloud signatures as with the DocuWare Signature Service, you are on the safe and legally compliant side with both solutions.
Data security: signature process in highly secure crypto-processors
In the past, companies could only create qualified electronic signatures if the hardware for this — the signature creation device — was under their control, i.e. the hardware crypto module and the necessary smartcard and card reader.
Today, the secure signature creation device (SSCD) can be located at a signature service provider, which stores and applies the certificate and keys for the signature creator. These providers provide a highly secure cloud-signing platform via the Internet, where businesses, official bodies, or private individuals can sign their documents.
The actual signing process takes place in hardware security modules, which the signature service provider operates in a secure cloud server infrastructure. Hardware security modules (HSMs) are special crypto-processors that ensure the protection of signatures and software keys.
The signature service providers that DocuWare works with use HSMs that meet the U.S. FIPS 140-2 Level 3 standard for cryptographic modules.
Data protection: the data remains in your region
Signature data contains personal and confidential data. Therefore, it should be ensured that this data remains within the data protection region whose data protection law is applicable, even during the signing process. This is guaranteed with the signature service providers with whom DocuWare works.
Validated ID uses highly secure data centers in Ireland and the Netherlands, which are subject to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and an additional data center in the United Kingdom for customers there.
DocuSign uses several highly secure data centers in both the U.S. and the EU for the signature service.