Does your digital signature need to match your wet signature?

No, your digital signature, whether typed, drawn, or generated with our AI feature, doesn’t need to look the same as your wet signature to be legally valid. The legality of a digital signature comes from the cryptographic method used to create it. Digital sealing also makes the digital signature verifiable.

Understanding your Sign ID and Sign.com Document ID

Here’s why these identifiers (IDs) and other Sign.com security measures are crucial for ensuring the legality and security of your signatures:

1. The Sign ID identifies you

The Sign ID you see on your signed documents is a unique identifier tied directly to your email address. It’s used to protect you against signature forgery.

2. The Sign.com Document ID identifies the document

Each document you sign or use to request signatures is associated with a unique Document ID. It’s used to protect you against document forgery.

3. Documents with multiple signees

• Use Sign.com for the entire signing process to make sure you can verify all signatures in the document.
• If other signees use different software, platforms, or methods to add their signatures, this can break the digital seal, making it harder to detect if others make unauthorized edits or changes to the document. Read more about tampering detection.
• Inviting all signees to sign through Sign.com makes sure that all signatures are recorded, tracked, and verified within our secure system. This maintains the document’s legality and protects all parties involved.

4. Activity timeline for tracking and verifying document activity

• The activity timeline is a detailed record of every action taken on your document, including when it was signed, who signed it, and any changes made. This timeline verifies the authenticity of your document in case of any legal disputes.
• With Sign.com, the activity timeline is automatically generated and stored securely. It gives a comprehensive history of the document’s lifecycle, including timestamps for each activity.

5. Forgery and tampering detection with verified vs. unverified signatures

• Unverifiable signatures: With traditional signatures that don’t have a verifiable digital seal, a forger may try to recreate the visual look of your signature. They may also tamper with the document by making edits, like adding a ‘0’ to a number. Investigators can check pen ink, pressure, and other physical attributes in a dispute to detect forgery or tampering.
• Verifiable signatures: Verifiable electronic signatures rely on cryptographic signatures, document IDs, and timestamps rather than the look of the signature. A forger may try to use a screenshot to recreate a signature, or they could make edits to the document. Investigators can cross-check the timestamps and cryptographic security measures to detect forgery or tampering. You can also use signature validators to check the validity of electronic signatures.
• Adding signatures using a different signature software after using Sign.com qualifies as tampering and will break the digital seal.

6. Typed signatures are enforceable

• Typing your signature with Sign.com is considered legally valid. Even though typed signatures can be easily recreated, the cryptographic security measures—including the Sign ID, the Sign.com Document ID, and the signing timestamp—are all still valid.