Digital evidence of electronic signatures

Do you need to make electronic transactions with confidence? If you have taken a step forward in your company’s digital transformation, you need to think about the use of electronic signatures. You may have some doubts about its validity and reliability, so we will tell you what digital evidence of electronic signatures consist of in the following post.

What is digital evidence?

Digital evidence is a set of data collected when a document is signed using an electronic signature. This guarantees its integrity and ensures that it has not been tampered with concerning the original Electronic Evidence is generated in XML or PDF  and includes a time-stamp indicating the exact moment of signature.

Digital evidence of Click & Sign’s digital signature

At Click & Sign electronic signature, the documentary evidence is a PDF document that includes the following data:

• Data of the registered emails or registered SMS sent and received: content, email addresses, mobile phone number, IPs of the process, dates and times of each communication.
• Signed documents.
• Technical annexes.
•  OTP, Click-to-Sign or biometric signature.
• Attachments.

As a result of the aforementioned, the documentary evidence issued through Click & Sign you will know:

• Who sent the document to be signed and when.
• The moment the recipient viewed the document, when they downloaded it and when they signed it.

Along with all the aforementioned, the documentary evidence is signed with a time-stamp, a digital mechanism that allows you to prove that the data relating to the electronic signature and the signed documents have not been tampered. Therefore, the time-stamp provides evidence of the electronic signature process

Click & Sign acts as a Time Stamp Authority (TSA), and its service consists, precisely, in acting as a trusted third party providing official time stamps

Timestamping is used in several sectors such as banking, for example, where it is used to protect online transactions such as money transfers. Public authorities also use time-stamps to record the exact date and time of submitting a document. Therefore, time stamping provides benefits such as the endorsement by a time-stamping authority, the possibility to validate its authenticity in a simple fashion, and its use is acknowledged and governed by European Union regulations. Article 41 of the eIDAS regulation establishes that:

1. An electronic signature shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic signature or that it does not meet the requirements for qualified electronic signatures.
2. The stamping is carried out by a Certification Authority and, therefore, the content of the document is protected from falsifications and manipulations.
3. A qualified electronic time stamp issued in one Member State shall be recognised as a qualified electronic time stamp in all Member States.

Article 42 of the eIDAS Regulation addresses the requirements for qualified electronic time stamps, which are as follows:

• It binds the date and time to the data in such a manner as to reasonably preclude the possibility of the data being changed undetectably;
• It is based on an accurate time source linked to Coordinated Universal Time; and
• It is signed using an advanced electronic signature or sealed with an advanced electronic seal of the qualified trust service provider or by some equivalent method.

Access to electronic evidence and documentary storage

To provide greater security and confidence to users of  Click & Sign electronic signature, Click & Sign keeps the digital evidence so that you can download or consult it simply from your account.

Several documents such as receipts, payslips, identity documents, etc. are used in an electronic signature process. Click & Sign stores all these documents for a five-year term. Time stamping ensures that the stored documents have not been tampered with and are kept in their original condition.

And why is it relevant to collect digital evidence of electronic signatures?

Digital evidence of the electronic signature is key to:

• Be able to use the signed document as evidence in court.
• To be sure that the original document has not been tampered with, forged, altered or modified.
• To generate confidence in the electronic signature of documents.
• Knowing all the ins and outs of the signature process.

As a result, the Click & Sign electronic signature is not just a digital signature but a whole process to provide evidence of all the important details of the signature, to provide total confidence in any transaction in which an electronic signature is used.