Trust forms the basis for any cooperation or exchange of goods and information, be it within a personal or an official business setting. In contracts or other agreements, the binding symbol of this trust is a person’s signature.
What was once exclusive to paper and pen is now achieved with an electronic signature, creating a binding commitment in the same way as the handwritten signature does – with business partners all over the world. Signatures create legal certainty for your documents even over long distances.
Almost all industries have adapted to workforces that collaborate from different locations, including home and mobile offices.
Cloud signatures contribute significantly to your business success by providing legal verification for documents while ensuring business continuity and productivity.
Demonstrate document integrity and authenticity
Every day we write or receive vast amounts of documents. Some of these do not require any documentary proof in a business or official setting. Other documents, such as certain contracts, must be legally watertight so that a court would also consider them to be binding. Depending on the industry, process, preference, your company’s location and with whom it works, rules vary to establish legal certainty.
With electronic signatures, you create certainty for three essential factors:
Authenticity: The document is genuine.
Integrity: The contents of the document have not been changed.
Origin: The person who created the document can be identified.
Electronic signatures for networked business and remote work
Business documents are no longer exclusive to physical corporate offices. They are also employed in home offices and mobile working. This distributed environment demands the need for binding principles and legal certainty even over long distances. Electronic signatures help employees fulfill their responsibilities immediately and from any location. After all, a process should not come to a standstill because an employee cannot sign a document when working on the move due to a lack of printing options.
Execute location-independent transactions in compliance with the law
Although legal models vary in strictness across regions, one thing is clear: the hardware security modules for generating digital certificates can be located in highly secure cloud infrastructures anywhere.
Where a physical smartcard and card reader was once necessary, today you can connect via verified signature providers that are certified in line with clear security standards. In this way, the data exchanged during the signature process is also secure.
Sign from any device
Through the integration of electronic signatures into automated workflows, companies can complete all processes in a legally secure manner, regardless of the device used. This includes signatures provided on computers, tablets, and mobile devices both company and customer owned.
The transaction data is secure and protected. With modern signatures, companies meet the compliance requirements of their respective regions, both in terms of information security and data protection.
Authentication and identity transmission
Many documents, such as contracts, are created and signed by one person within an organization and then countersigned by a person outside the organization. In these cases an advanced electronic signature is very often used. Recognized procedures for this are confirmation via access code, phone, SMS, or knowledge based authentication.
However, depending on the requirements of the signature, it may be necessary to verify the identity of the signatory beyond any doubt. In theses cases a qualified electronic signature is recommended. This verification is performed using a third-party provider who authenticates the user and thus ensures their identity when signing.
What to consider when making a decision
If you want to use electronic signatures in your company, you should consider these questions, among others:
Is the signature solution suitable for proving the integrity and authenticity of the documents?
Does the signing process take place in automated workflows in which employees with remote workstations can also be included?
Does the solution offer signing on both customer and company owned devices?
Does the solution allow you to sign with different security levels (advanced or qualified electronic signature)?
Is the data of the signature process stored in a legally compliant manner in the desired data protection region?
Does the signature service provider use highly secure HSM modules with proof of compliance?