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Frequently Asked Questions

Terminology

What is an electronic signature?

An electronic signature, like its paper equivalent, is a legal concept. The U.S. Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN) defines an electronic signature as “an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to, or associated with, a contract or other record and adopted by a person with the intent to sign a record.” Based on this definition, an electronic signature can be broken down into the following components: 1) a method of signing, 2) data authentication; 3) user authentication; and 4) capture of intent.

What is a digital signature?

The term digital signature refers to the encryption / decryption technology used as the foundation for a variety of security, e-business and e-commerce products. Based on public/private key cryptography, digital signatures are used in secure messaging, public key infrastructure (PKI), virtual private networks (VPN), secure socket layers, and electronic signatures.

Contrary to what the name might suggest, a digital signature alone is not a type of electronic signature. Rather, digital signature encryption can and should be used by electronic signature applications to secure the data and verify the authenticity of a signed record. Further, a digital signature alone does not capture a person’s intent to sign a document and be legally bound to an agreement or contract.

What is e-Signature Process Management?

E-Signature process management builds on top of digital signatures and electronic signatures to execute transactions from start to finish, while automating the enforcement of business rules. The solution uses digital signature technology to secure and authenticate users, data and the signing process itself, while ensuring that all internal business controls, legal requirements and compliance requirements are met as documents are presented to people for review, acceptance and signing.
 
This is especially important in self-serve, web environments where there isn’t anyone to guide customers through a signing process, as well as for more complex transactions where documents and legal disclosures must be presented to people in the right order, and where signing processes and documents may differ between geographic locations. Further, an electronic signature process management solution typically integrates with an organization’s front and back-end systems to pull the correct documents and pre-approved data, and then return all documents once they are correctly completed so that downstream processes can be automatically triggered.