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Electronic Signatures Now Legal
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Business New Haven
10/30/2000
By: BNH
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The stroke of the pen can now be legally replaced by a keystroke. Effective October 1, the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act declares an electronic signature to be a legal alternative to pen and ink.
This not only alleviates tendonitis for paper-pushers, but also is the next step in creating the so-called “paperless” society. Now, if all parties agree, there is no need to create printed versions of signed documents that can be retrieved electronically. This saves businesses time, money and storage space.
Electronic signatures can be as simple as JPEG reproductions of a signature. But more security might be wise.
“You could simply agree with the other party to exchange JPEG signatures, but then your new business partner would have a perfect copy of the very signature that you use to sign contracts,” warns Bret A. Fausett, an intellectual property and Internet attorney (bret@lextext.com) in the November issue of webtechniques magazine. “Worse, everyone on your business partner's network would have a perfect copy.”
Indeed, the amount of legal ink coming on this issue could stall the paperless society a bit more.
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