Authenticating certificates without the need for a pen 

In today's digital world, the need for additional layers of security has become more important than ever to protect businesses and the end consumer. Using digital signing technology allows for verified certificates to be provided efficiently and cost-effectively. 

As the digital services world evolves, the ability to complete or sign documents digitally has become essential. There are a number of business considerations to align with important levels of electronic signing all surrounding the usual ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’:

• Is the 'signing entity' who they say they are? - A 'trusted identity'
• Can the signature and associated identity be validated?
• Does the signing model provide legal assurance? 

Digital signing technology acts as an assurance that the document issuer is authentic and the document has not been tampered with. We have partnered with a leading global supplier of this technology, GlobalSign, to offer this service to our clients. 

The security 

When a document is submitted for digital signature, a hash algorithm of the PDF is sent to the digital signing authority. The value is based on the full content of the PDF document, and is then digitally signed by encrypting the hash value with the signer’s private key, and returned to be included in the generated PDF.

When the PDF is viewed in Adobe, the document hash is decrypted using a public key. If the decrypted values match Adobe has verification that the document has been signed by the verified signing authority and not modified and displays the blue digital signature banner.

As no personal data is sent in the hash of the PDF to GlobalSign, there are no GDPR issues raised by sending this data off the Isle of Man.