Electronic signatures are welcomed in the majority of countries around the world as a way to transition beyond a paper-based environment for document contracts.

PleaseSign provides you with a legally binding electronic signature solution (Service) for your individual and business contract requirements. PleaseSign complies with the requirements outlined in the following:

• eIDAS (Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services) Regulation

Overview

Under European law, a handwritten signature is no longer the only way to be bound to a contract or agreement. Contracts are generally considered legally binding when parties reach an agreement, whether they agree verbally, electronically or on a physical paper document.

The eIDAS Regulation specifically confirms that provided certain requirements are met, and a relevant exception does not apply, contracts cannot be denied enforceability merely because they were concluded electronically.

Digital signature providers can provide electronic records that are admissible in evidence under European law to support the existence, authenticity and valid acceptance of a contract.

Authenticating signatures

PleaseSign authenticates all parties involved in a document so you know exactly who is signing. Any party signing a document through the Service must either have an active, verified account registered with the Service, or have received by way of secure email, or secure sms a request for signature.

To protect information transmitted over the Service, all information transferred is 256-bit SSL encrypted.

Verifying signatures

Each document signed through the Service is securely monitored, tracked and recorded in an audit trail. This non-editable audit trail contains a globally unique identifier, that can be used to look up a record in our database that shows all parties involved in the document and their signatures. These records include an encrypted hash of the PDF document which can be used to compare to the encrypted hash of a provided document to determine whether or not it has been modified since the time of it’s completion.

Document integrity

PleaseSign has been designed to keep your contracts secure and to prevent modifications of a document during and after the signing process. Utilising cryptographic hashing technology, PleaseSign creates a unique hash of the document PDF before it is sent for signatures. Each time a party signs the document a new unique hash is created, using this history of hashes you can prove there was no tampering or modifications made to the document PDF.

Cryptographically verifiable transactions log

PleaseSign records a comprehensive log of all transactions that occur between signing parties. To provide you with a court-admissible transaction history, we record and time-stamp all events that occur from the moment a document is created, to when it’s filled out and signed by all parties.

To ensure this transaction history is verifiable, we process each event with a cryptographic hash function called a checksum to confirm the existing transaction history has not been tampered with and to securely record the new event.

Secure on-shore data storage

In addition to providing the highest level of encryption available for your documents, PleaseSign securely stores and backs up all documents, data, files and assets in Amazon S3, an ISO 27001 certified data centre, located sovereignly on European shores.

Disclaimer: 

The contents of this page have been produced for informational purposes only. They have been designed to give a basic understanding of how PleaseSign operates under the EU requirements for digital signature and electronic signature providers. The contents should not be considered legal advice and are not a substitute for professional legal advice.