BlogCompliance

What a standard signature does not do

The ordinary signature completes the PDF you sent. Several other legal effects stay outside that act.

Name the limits before a customer hears them from someone else.inSigner

A standard electronic signature is useful and limited. It lets a person sign the PDF in the workspace. It does not perform every act a customer might hope a signature platform performs.


01 · It is not a qualified signature

It is not a qualified signature

QES for Europe is an Enterprise option. The ordinary signature is not QES, not an advanced signature under eIDAS, and not an ICP-Brasil certificate. If you need one of those, choose it on purpose.

02 · It is not a notary or a witness

It is not a notary or a witness

The product does not notarize, does not supply a witness, and does not file a document in a land registry or a company registry. If the act needs one of those, the signature on the PDF does not replace it.

Say what the signature does. The trust is in the limit as much as in the act.

03 · It does not collect the money

It does not collect the money

Signing a payment schedule does not move the money. The parties pay by the method in the PDF. inSigner sends the file and stores the signed result.

  • Are we calling this signature qualified?
  • Does this act still need a notary, witness, or filing?
  • Are the terms already adapted by counsel?
  • Will we keep the PDF and the SHA-256 record?

04 · It does not make the terms lawful

It does not make the terms lawful

A signature does not cure a clause the governing law forbids. Counsel adapts the text. The product does not review the clause, and this journal does not give that advice.

05 · It does leave a file hash

It does leave a file hash

What it does leave is the completed PDF and a completion record with a SHA-256 hash of the final file. That is the integrity check. Describe it as that, and not as a certification program.

Primary sources

European Union: eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014
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Written by

inSignerGuides from the inSigner team. They describe the product and name public laws. They are not legal advice.

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