Legality of electronic signatures

Are electronic signatures legally binding?

Electronic signatures are just as binding as a physical signatures on paper, however, all our Clients should double check the local legal requirements.

There are various solutions and technologies in the market with differing levels of trust and legal force. The Admincontrol solution encapsulates two options, both compliant with EU eIDAS standards: Advanced signature and Limited signature.

Advanced signature is based on a market-leading digital signature technology and is both secure and legally binding.

This solution is available in the Nordic markets that use BankID (Norway and Sweden), NemID/MitID (Denmark) and the Finnish Bank ID. It is compatible with international signature regulations and is an advanced electronic signature under the EU eIDAS Regulation.

Limited signature is an alternative, SMS/email-based solution available in all markets. This is an electronic signature based on simple authentication. The person is identified through access to Admincontrol combined with a one-time password for completing the signing of a specific document. This solution is used to obtain consent or approval of digital documents, such as contracts, and is recognised as legally valid in most countries.

Advanced or Limited Signature?

• It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that the use of an electronic signature is recognized as valid for the documents to be signed using Admincontrol’s e-signature solutions
• There may be legal, official or organisational requirements for a document to be signed with an Advanced or Limited signature.
• Some countries may have additional requirements for certain types of documents.

Security

The security of the signing solution will depend on its technical design and the complexity behind it. A solution in which the document is received by e-mail and a PDF version is electronically signed and returned by e-mail will accordingly have a very different level of security from one that also controls the mailing and storage of the document, and which implements BankID or biometric authorisation. The advantage of Admincontrol’s solution is that you have full control over who can see the content of the document to be signed.

More questions and answers related to e-signatures and security:

What should be the criteria for choosing a solution?

The solution must use secure and approved eID-based identification methods. In addition to the level of trust in the signature, you also need to assess the security of access to the documents and the security of the method of distribution of for the signing requests.

What signing types should you use?

In addition to the level of trust in the signing type itself, you need to consider how the signing of an electronically signed document can be validated at a later date.

Admincontrol relies on recognised and compatible formats whereby legal validation can be performed in any standardised PDF reader, so you do not need access to special software or the signing solution itself to validate the e-signature.

How secure is the solution?

Board documents and other agreements documents that require signing often contain sensitive information. As such you should consider how sure are you that the solution you choose is suitable for storing the information in the document itself?

Admincontrol is very security-focused, is certified to ISO 2700: 213 and SOC 2, and undergoes regular external security testing and are as such able to offers solutions with a high level of trust, so you can be confident that your information is stored and shared safely.