What is the difference between Electronic Signature and Digital Signature?
Digital Signature is the subset of the Electronic Signatures. Digital Signatures and Electronic Signatures have extremely different security properties. An Electronic Signature refers to a signature on an electronic document. It is equivalent to handwritten signature on paper. As per the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) an electronic signature is “an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record”. Digital Signatures leverage the underlying PKI infrastructure to provide signing and encryption for documents. While the PKI deals with creation of key pairs and issue / management of digital certificates, digital signature technology deals with use of these keys for various security functions from within the applications.
Related Questions
- What considerations should be taken into account when choosing a digital signature (standard electronic signature) solution that will maximize the business benefits of moving to a paperless environment?
- What is better from a legal standpoint, an electronic signature or a digital signature?
- How is an electronic signature different from a digital signature?
