Organizations must transition from legacy 'wet ink' signatures to a 'digital' format

Even in today’s highly digital, technology-driven business environment, many organizations demand wet ink signatures for important business critical documentation. This is when, say a contract in an electronic format for a new deal could be signed and sent via email within minutes -- compared to wet inking it, scanning (sometimes running into 100s of pages), and posting to the other party, who then would follow the same process to send a signed copy back.

It’s a hugely inefficient, time consuming and inconvenient process. But it’s a corporate policy that many businesses insist on.

The misnomers surrounding digital signatures

Perhaps the primary reason that organizations insist on wet ink signatures is the misnomer that digital signatures aren’t legally admissible. The reality is to the contrary. In the UK, the Electronics Communication Act came into effect in 2000 and made electronic signatures admissible in legal proceedings. Similarly, they are court admissible and enforceable in the European Union and even in the rest of the world.

The second inaccuracy in perception is that digital signatures aren’t as secure as wet ink signatures. From looking at a signature, could one be absolutely sure that the hand-written signature has indeed been signed by the designated individual? The answer is no! Today, in addition to security, organizations need to be mindful of issues such as privacy and compliance too.

Digital signature technology is developed based on industry security certification standards such as ISO 270001. Most good digital signature software will provide a ‘tamper seal’ to documents, which ensures that it’s not tampered with in any way after it has been downloaded. Privacy of data is ensured as documents are fully encrypted. Furthermore, a variety of advanced authentication options to restrict access to unauthorized individuals is standard functionality.

There is an audit trail with digital signatures and users can track the document through every step of the process until it is securely stored. The audit trial can be as detailed as required -- including information such as names of signing parties, email and IP addresses, time stamps through to the chain of custody -- i.e. who sent, viewed, singed, printed, declined to sign the document and so on. This level of thoroughness supports compliance.

Other business benefits of digital signatures

The legality of digital signatures aside, there are significant commercial benefits too, mobility being one. How often does it happen that the key signatory of a major deal is holding up contract closure because he or she is traveling on work? For those who work out of the office a lot, a digital signature app on the mobile device would allow users to sign via their smartphone or tablet. The technology also allows individuals to prepare and send documents for signatures from their devices.

Low cost of storage and 24 x 7 availability is a big advantage. Given that in a typical organization, signed documents and contracts can run into the hundreds, allocating physical space for their storage is costly and unnecessary. A hard copy of a document tucked away in a storage facility inside the office or externally isn’t as easily accessible as it would be if it is automatically saved in the organization's document management system post being digitally signed by the various parties.

A wet ink signature approach to documentation is a legacy of the past. In a time when organizations are exploring major technology initiatives such as digital transformation, cloud technology and so on, adopting digital signatures is truly a quick win.

Photo Credit: Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

Jon Wainwright is Sales Director at Ascertus Limited. Prior to Ascertus, he was Sales Director with responsibility for driving sales and growing the business at Solicitec, a case management solution provider to professional services organisations. His experience in the document and case management sector spans more than 22 years.  During this time, he has helped many legal and accounting firms as well as large corporate and government departments implement strategic end to end document life cycle management and automation solutions.