E-signature Security

Have you ever heard of pens that use a special kind of ink that penetrates paper so the ink cannot be removed? This sounds like a great thing to use to prevent check fraud and other signature fraud.

Although this is a great tool to prevent fraud, electronic signatures still provide more layers of protection to help you ensure who is really signing a document.

With the ink pen, someone can still forge a name on a contract. There are a number of scenarios and situations that have occured where people do this. So, why not eliminate someone ability to access the document to begin with?

This is a feature of e-signatures that many lawyers, accountants, and other professionals use most. Let’s say I wanted to get you to sign a document. Instead of mailing or faxing and allowing the document to go through “many hands,” I send you an email request to your password protected email account. With an e-signature service like ConXPoint, you will also need a PIN to access the document. That is two layers of security.

After you access and sign the document, the signature is stamped with your IP address, date and time you signed the document, and additional auditing information. Hand written signatures cannot capture information in the same way. Furthermore, the original document is stored by law in a secure location to prevent tampering.

I believe penetrating ink still has it’s place. It’s just that e-signatures are more secure than handwritten signatures, regardless of what kind of ink you use.

National Stay at Home Week

Have you heard about ABC’s National Stay at Home Week promotion?  What began as a clever attempt to promote the ABC Fall TV schedule actually is gaining traction with the environmental movement, with people struggling to fill their gas tanks, and companies looking to ease this burden by allowing workers to telecommute.

Working from home would indeed decrease our national fuel consumption. The problem is that many business owners worry how working from home may reduce accountability and worker efficiency. These are legitimate worries.

Access to files, projects, and communications are all concerns that have been addressed through online programs that enable you to connect to the office, collaborate on documents, and discuss topics face-to-face via video web conferencing.

This technology may sound like a thing of the future, but it is actually very accessible to businesses and workers through any internet connection. The ConXPoint Business Center, for example doesn’t need to be installed on your computer or managed by an IT professional. It is easily accessible via your internet browser.

If you decide to participate in the National Stay at Home Week, but worry how this will affect your work, you may want to consider trying out one of the remote file management and online collaboration services. Most have a free trial. Staying at home for an entire week will give you a good opportunity to try out a new way to work.

PDF E-Signature Problems

I get a lot of hits on this blog from people looking for acrobat e-signature information for Adobe PDF. I’m still not sure why so many people are searching for this information, but I have a pretty good idea. Because creating e-signature fields in PDFs is a difficult process.

There are other user-friendly ways to get your documents signed in a PDF. Web-based e-signature tools convert other file types to PDF for you then you simply drag and drop the signature fields that you need to the location on the document. It is extremely user friendly.

It’s free to try. If you get frustrated figuring out how to set up e-signature fields in Adobe Acrobat, just check out ConXPoint’s Business Center free for a month. You can upload your document, and then request an e-signature.

National Notary Association: e-Notary

Many US states have implemented electronic notary (e-notary) laws, and the National Notary Association (NNA) is working hard to help remaining states promote e-notary technology. In their July magazine, the NNA reported the “Lancaster, Pennsylvania County Recorder of Deeds, Steve McDonald, estimates his office records an average of 225 eNotarized docments a month.” That is an increase in about 10% over last year.

Currently, 39 states authorize the Electronic Notary Seal (ENS). This is good news for people wanting to use e-signatures to close mortgages, contracts, and any other agreement that needs to be signed. One of the only problems is that many signed documents must be notarized.”The eNotarization Initiative has paved the way for other types of electronic documents to be signed digitally.”

Although the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) permits eNotarization, the current issue facing the e-notary initiative is many states have dissimilar e-notary security provisions. The Uniform Law Commission (UCL) is meeting October 3-5 to work on its draft of a Uniform Notarial Act that hopefully will establish a security standard for electronic notary seals.

More to come on this topic.

PDF E-Signature Services

If you use Adobe Professional to sign your documents, you may ask yourself, “Why use a web-based electronic signature service?”

First and foremost, a web-based e-signature service is not just for those with Adobe installed on their computer. Anyone with access to an internet connection can sign documents, regardless of which version of Adobe they have. The free Adobe Reader cannot sign a PDF unless the PDF has added extended usage rights (reader extensions). Without such rights, every signer must have Adobe Acrobat, or the equivalent.

You can’t sign just any PDF. A signable PDF file must include a digital signature field. To create digital signature fields you must have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard or Professional and a firm understanding of form fields. Creating a digital ID is a long process (11 steps) and far from intuitive. No one wants to use a difficult technology just to sign their name.

Web-based e-signature services enable you and anyone else who needs to sign your document to sign online without upgrading or buying additional software or learning how to use new software. For instance, if you sign your documents using Adobe Professional, but need your client to sign as well, are you going to request that they install new software or upgrade before they sign? Most web-based e-signature services convert documents to a PDF file. So, you’re still working with the same file format, yet eliminate the need for your clients to have the same software you have.

A web-based esignature service automatically inserts digital signature fields for you. Services such as ConXPoint lets you drag and drop fields to any location on the document in 1 step rather than 11, and even routes the document via email to all signers. You can also manage the signature workflow to see who has and who has not signed the document from an easy to use interface.

Best yet, ConXPoint offers unlimited free esignatures as part of its Business Center suite. You don’t have to pay every time you want to sign your name to a document or be limited by a certain number of signatures allocated to you in a package. If you sign a contract, and your client doesn’t approve of the terms, you can revise the contract and sign again without paying again.

Technology should be inexpensive and easy to use. Just open the “getting started with digital signatures” option in Adobe Standard to be overwhelmed with steps to electronically sign your name. Or, you can try ConXPoint’s service for 30 days for free to see how easy signing your name can be.