SIGNiX uses a specific type of electronic signature known as a “digital signature." The digital signatures that are produced by our system are standards-based and aren’t proprietary.
Digital signatures are a highly secure type of electronic signature. They use coded messages that are unique to both the document and to the signer. The digital signature protects the document against tampering and uses advanced technology to prove the identity of each signer. SIGNiX provides secure, convenient and affordable signatures to companies of all shapes and sizes.
You probably know from personal experience that changing from one service provider to another can be tough. But you might not know that some less-scrupulous vendors build roadblocks designed to lock customers into their service. This is something the technology industry calls “vendor lock-in.”
We think locking you into one technology is kind of sneaky. We’d much rather you stay on as our customers because you like our products, our customer service and the security we provide with our digital signatures. That’s why we offer something we call Vendor FreedomTM. This really just means you can confirm signature validity without SIGNiX.
Our digital signatures and their supporting evidence are embedded into your signed documents, so you don’t need to be a SIGNiX customer, or come back to our website, just to check if they are valid. In fact, you don’t even need to be connected to the Internet to verify your documents.
Though our signatures use a patented process, the digital signatures that are produced by our system are standards-based and aren’t proprietary. The digital signatures are stored in the PDFs produced by our system and can be independently verified without checking back with SIGNiX’s system.
The signatures are produced according to ISO 32000-1 (PDF), and include cryptographic elements that are also standards-based, including x.509, RSA, DSA and SHA, among others.
E-signature services that don’t utilize digital signatures for each signing event require customers to check with their service to validate individual signatures, meaning if the service goes out of business or is offline, those signed documents may be put into question.
You might wonder how we’re able to offer Vendor Freedom when none of our competitors can. The key is in the signature! Our signatures are true digital signatures (learn about electronic vs. digital signatures if you’re not sure what the difference is), which means the signatures travel with the document no matter where it goes. This also means that our signatures are based on actual documented technical standards that aren’t proprietary to us—they've been well-known in the technology sector for more than 20 years.
SIGNiX keeps a detailed audit log for evidentiary purposes. This audit log is also available as part of the signing process, and can be provided in XML and PDF versions. We keep a copy of every audit trail created in our system to keep a copy of the evidence that proves signing, but we don’t have to store the actual documents that were signed.