what a great idea, thank you very much. Two years ago I was evaluating different signing solutions for the company I worked with and there were two killer features that forced us to go with docusign since at the time they were the only ones really supporting it:
1. Relaying of Submissions to other Signers
We often found that we needed to get a Signature from someone at another company. However, we couldn't a priori say "Person X has to sign it". Often we had a contact person that would help us navigate the internal structure of the other company and relay the signing to that person. Docusign has the ability to allow us to say this person we know can decide who has to sign this document, even if we don't know that person. No one else at the time supported that use case.
2. Qualified Electronic Signatures
So... Here in Germany our Government has some kind of Angst (might call it german angst) of anything digital. A Handwritten signature on a piece of paper is held in such high regards that the digital equivalent (qualified electronic signatures) require a video ident workflow with a passport held into the camera and so on. This has to be done via a third party service that takes like 15-20 Euro per validation. I know it's insane. There's a reason that theres no german silicon valley... Anyway, there are many situations where this level of validation is required by law.
Just my 2cts after dealing with this issue here, I think 1. is something you might look into implementing, cause it's a use case that might come up more often, 2. is just really annoying for everyone.
I'm interested in reading more about #2, can you provide a source?
https://www.docusign.com/products/electronic-signature/legal... doesn't mention anything about videos or passports. I could see how that might be one means a third party has chosen to collect proof of intent, but haven't found anything legally mandating it.
> The WebID service VideoID provides call-center functionality, where trained support agents can verify the validity of the provided identity papers and ask security questions to the end-user during a live video call.
This may be german law specific, the overarching EU Legislation can be found by googlign "qualified electronic signature".
In general they require complete, verified cryptographic signatures via smartcards or similar but because no one uses it, videoident has become the defacto alternative in germany
That's a misconception. Most contracts or form-free and can be made by handshake if one wants to. There are however some exceptions, which require either physical signatures or the qualified signatures as declared by eIDAS. Those exceptions are some employment contract and most things related to banking.
The need for identification over video, etc., has more to do with the know-your-customer laws.
Most physical bearers (smart card or similar) of a Qualified Certificate are issued in person or based on a known identity. Here there is no need for remote identification before the issuance of the certificate.
What you are talking about is a “remote signature service”. Such a service will often onboard a user remotely using a physical ID, video and liveliness checks and give them the credentials to produce advanced or qualified electronic signatures with the service in question. These credentials have to meet LoA Substantial or High for a QTSP to be able to issue a QC to a user. Most remote signature services use very short lived certificates (10-15 minutes) that are created for every signature the user produces. (As opposed to the long lived certificates of several years for a physical card).
Germany have to follow the eIDAS-regulation as a member state of the EU/EAA. But what level of signature is needed for what transactions is not regulated in the eIDAS.
> But what level of signature is needed for what transactions is not regulated in the eIDAS.
Yeah, its the issue that germany decided that only the QES is as legally binding as a physical signature and then they made a whole bunch of contracts, especially work related stuff require physical signatures
what a great idea, thank you very much. Two years ago I was evaluating different signing solutions for the company I worked with and there were two killer features that forced us to go with docusign since at the time they were the only ones really supporting it:
1. Relaying of Submissions to other Signers
We often found that we needed to get a Signature from someone at another company. However, we couldn't a priori say "Person X has to sign it". Often we had a contact person that would help us navigate the internal structure of the other company and relay the signing to that person. Docusign has the ability to allow us to say this person we know can decide who has to sign this document, even if we don't know that person. No one else at the time supported that use case.
2. Qualified Electronic Signatures
So... Here in Germany our Government has some kind of Angst (might call it german angst) of anything digital. A Handwritten signature on a piece of paper is held in such high regards that the digital equivalent (qualified electronic signatures) require a video ident workflow with a passport held into the camera and so on. This has to be done via a third party service that takes like 15-20 Euro per validation. I know it's insane. There's a reason that theres no german silicon valley... Anyway, there are many situations where this level of validation is required by law.
Just my 2cts after dealing with this issue here, I think 1. is something you might look into implementing, cause it's a use case that might come up more often, 2. is just really annoying for everyone.