Quo vadis digital signature

Before answering this question a fundamental misunderstanding must come to light especially for EU based readers of this article.  E-billing does not present the platform application of digital signatures. It is just one of many examples, which for different reasons, has been mentioned in the EU media more often than other (perhaps even more important) applications. Even if the EU framework would cause e-billing to not need digital signatures, and sending unsigned PDF or XML documents would be entirely sufficient, this wouldn’t imply the end of the digital signature. Rather, the main application is presented by fully digital business processes, also described as “the paperless office”.   It is very costly to spend a lot of money automating entire business processes just to print out documents for the reason of signing them, which means they ultimately have to be scanned and perhaps also mailed before getting back to the IT environment.  This process is extremely costly and inefficient.

Conversely, these essential decisions of a person signing a document, relating to the authenticity of a contract or the confirmation of a procedural step, cannot be automated by just a password and the “Enter” key.  The probability of such a decision is extremely doubtful for internal processes and even more important for signatures and acknowledgments of important contracts and business documents across company boundaries.

Here we face one of the main areas of relevance regarding digital signatures in combination with a biometric signature or a secure digital identification card.  The process of a customer signing on a contract can be digitally mapped one to one.   It is not necessary to print the contract. The signature of the customer is digitally recorded on a signature tablet. The signature data becomes directly embedded into the electronic document and protected against unnoticed ex post changes using a digital signature. There is no need for the time-consuming and costly paper handling, and both the customer and the providers are in possession of a secure electronic document. The recorded biometric data of the signature can be proved by a graphologist, as it is quite the same procedure as on paper. In closed applications, companies can enroll sample signatures on a server in order to compare and verify them in real time.

For internal processes the same digital signature technology can be used.  If the company already works with digital cards (certificates) for their employees, or wants to, it also is recommended that another variant of the digital signature is used – we call it a digital stamp.  The employee chooses the right stamp depending on the desired decision (for example “Declined”, “Approved”, “Admitted”,…), optionally adds comments on his decision, identifies himself with his digital ID card and clearly expresses his decision by the visible stamp which protects the electronic document against unnoticed ex post changes.

In addition to all cost saving advantages, paperless document management also has a positive effect on our environment. Not only is a considerable amount of paper and toner saved, but all paper related handling and transportation expenses are avoided.  Saving costs and contributing to environmental protection is crucial to our current economic and to global circumstances as well.

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