Recently, I registered in the Pune International Marathon (PIM). The registration was done on a 3rd party event registration platform. The payment was done using another 3rd party payment gateway. Of course, this makes sense. The PIM can do what they do best – organize the marathon and leave the registration and payments to professional platforms that have the expertise.
A case can be made for a signature platform along the same lines. A contract management system for example is incomplete without digital signatures. Is it even a contract if not signed? However, a digital signature platform is a lot more nuanced than an event registration platform. There are far more important reasons for it to be hosted by a neutral 3rd party.
Signing a contract is normally performed on a platform that is not under the control of any of the interested parties. Therefore, systems typically integrate signing solutions from vendors with whom they have an arms-length relationship.
This assures all signing parties that:
- 1. The document that gets signed is indeed the document that was displayed.
- 2. No other document was signed other than the one displayed..
- 3. Signatures are not swapped/misused.
- 4. Audit trails provided have integrity (cannot be tampered with by anyone party to the document).
- 5. Partially signed documents cannot be misused.
- 6. Any email / SMS is language neutral and not misleading.
Any organization using digital signing needs to demonstrate that the interests of all parties are protected, and this is best done by integrating a neutral, third-party signing solution.
Platforms that deal with generation and exchange of documents, should integrate a neutrally hosted digital signature solution that is fully compliant with the law of the land.
