Digital signatures are crucial for the digitization of processes. They pave the way to the paperless enterprise, enable the digital transformation of business models, and eliminate the hassle of sending contracts by mail, which saves time and money.
But how is a digital signature actually created and how time-consuming is this process? Here it is important to understand what the digital signature process looks like in reality.
A digital signature does not necessarily have a graphic component
When people think of a digital signature, they often imagine an exact digital image of their own handwritten signature, such as on the portable touchpads used by the post office when accepting a package.
However, a digital signature is not bound to this form and, in fact, doesn’t necessarily include a graphic component at all! It is therefore not necessary, for example, to “digitize” one’s own signature by hand on a touchpad and then have it verified.
On the contrary, solutions that are limited exclusively to this graphical part are generally not secure. Conversely, digital signatures can be completely secure and legally valid without a graphical component.
To understand this, it is important to keep in mind what makes a signature unique – whether digital or handwritten. A handwritten signature is secure because each person has a unique way of signing. It is possible, for example, to conclude whether a handwritten signature is forged simply by looking closely at the typeface.
With digital signatures, this is simply not necessary, because here the verification of identity is done differently, for example by matching your ID card with a scan of your face. A successful comparison then also legitimizes your digital signature in the eyes of the law – completely independent of how it is graphically designed.
Verifying your identity with a digital signature can therefore be done completely digitally, without you ever having to pick up a pen.
You don’t have to take any special precautions for this, either, because you can identify yourself during the digital signature process. Depending on the signature standard, this requires an e-mail address, a telephone number and/or a camera and an identification document. The rest is done by the software of the respective eSignature provider.
Creating a digital signature in just a few steps – a guide
We can explain how easy the process is to create an electronic signature using Certifaction as an example:
- Create an account with Certifaction by clicking on the blue “Try for free” button at the top right of the website, then enter your email address and a password and submit.
- Go to your mail program and verify your mail address with a single click. Now enter some more information about your account and you will land on the dashboard. From here, you can directly initiate the digital signature process.
- Upload the PDF document you want to sign. You can easily drag and drop it into the field under “Sign a document”.
- In the next step, select which people should be invited to sign. You can make additional settings here, such as a signing order, if necessary. If you are the only signer, you can complete the process directly.
- If you or other signers need to identify themselves additionally, such as for a QES, this is done at this point. The identification only takes a few minutes and only needs to be performed once every few months for each user.
- After identification, click on sign and you are done. The document is digitally signed in a legally valid way.
As you can see, the signing process only takes a few minutes and is completely digital. If you have already identified yourself, it can even be done in well under a minute.
The signatures are legally valid in the entire EU and in Switzerland, as well as in most other countries around the world. Learn more about this on the linked page.
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