Legal Validity Promoting Use of Digital Signatures

The legal validity to digital signatures has changed the landscape for e-commerce globally. Along with popular applications like e-banking, e-tendering, and e-procurement, e-approvals, etc., the wagon of e-commerce is reaching new milestones everyday with the help of legally valid digital signatures. While assuring authentication and non-repudiation, digital signature (PKI) technology maintains integrity and confidentiality of digitally signed electronic documents.

Several countries have now come up with laws assigning legal validity to digital signatures, as the latter ensures authenticity, and security. Along with the security aspects, digital signatures also help businesses go paperless and efficient. Therefore, many countries are promoting the use of digital signatures, and are making their use mandatory in the applications, which deal with sensitive data.

In today’s ‘small’ world, organizations are utilizing ‘big’ tricks like Internet to reap maximum business benefits. And legality and security associated with digital signatures is helping them in generating pace and profits within their business ideas. Several countries have laid out certain legal standards that promote digital signatures. Let us have a look at some of the digital/electronic signature laws and regulations across the world put in place to encourage e-transactions:

1. ESIGN Act (Electronic Signature in Global and National Commerce Act)
2. UETA (Uniform Electronic Commerce Act)
3. GPEA (Government Paperwork Elimination Act)
4. EU law (EU Directive for Electronic Signatures)
5. US DoD JITC (Joint Interoperability Test Command)
6. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
7. SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act)
8. 21 CFR Part 11
9. Indian IT Act 2000

Anything, which is legal, takes less time to become popular and stable in any form of social or business environment. The emphasis is given simulating ideas, which are established, or have gained popular ground. In case of digital signatures, worldwide legislations have fueled their acceptance in every possible business that we can think of. From banking to insurance, and from health care to retail, common consensus is moving towards digitally signed electronic documents, saving time, money, and paper.

Needless to say, organizations will adopt tools that are affordable, and yet faster and simpler than traditional ones. This so-called 'cost-effective' business approach is at the core of growing paperless environment. As we move ahead, the scope for paperless procedures will become broader.

Every industry, irrespective of its functionalities, is adopting digital signatures in one or the other way. From external communications to internal communications, digitally signed electronic documents have changed the way communications take place. Faster, simpler, yet secure and confidential, these communications have ignited the competition amongst businesses like never before. Digital signature solutions providers are also customizing their products to meet various requirements of several industries to serve their customers efficiently and effectively.

In the passage of time, digital signatures have become a tool to garner customer's confidence and support. But at the core is digital signatures, legal validity. From banking transactions to medial records, and from online loan applications to tendering, digital signatures have the ‘Golden Touch, to transform hectic business processes into simpler ones.

Therefore, a tool for securing the integrity of digitally signed documents; the legal validity is pumping the acceptance of digital signatures in various environments. This legal validity is not only helping the end users, but also organizations to reach out to larger customer base with innovation and simplicity.