CNET NEWS.COM - Despite law, few people use e-signatures. Most people are still putting pen to paper these days, despite a law signed by former President Clinton nearly two years ago that made electronic signatures the legal equivalent of traditional signatures. Electronic signatures were supposed to wipe out the need for time-consuming and costly efforts to sign certain documents. Bank loans, refinancing paperwork and legal documents were all targeted by backers of electronic signatures, with the idea of eliminating the need for meetings, notary publics or overnight deliveries to validate signatures. The technology certainly exists, but the promise of e-signatures has fizzled in the face of security concerns, competing e-signature standards and the fact that, when it comes to big deals, people still like to handle paper. "I think a lot of people, even e-savvy people, are frankly more comfortable in document-intensive transactions having a stack of paper to look at, review and sign with someone present," said Ian Ballon, an attorney who focuses on Internet and e-commerce law at Manatt, Phelp & Phillips, in Palo Alto, Calif. [Privacy Digest]
Prior to the law, a consensus was building around recognizing digital signatures--those based on public key infrastructure (PKI)--as a legal standard for signing documents online. PKI uses encryption keys to lock and unlock data. But because the e-sign law didn't recognize any particular standard for electronic signatures, it threw the standards battle back up for grabs, some analysts say.
"What e-sign really did was blow away PKI," said John Pescatore, research director for Internet security at Gartner. "All that legal work went away."
This was my objection to the law when it was being debated. The law thinks a person's name typed at the bottom of an email is as good as a paper signature, which is absurd to anyone with the slightest knowledge of technology.
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