On a daily basis organizations face the need to communicate critical information to employees, customers and suppliers, always ensuring that those documents cannot be modified by a third party. In the case of forms, financial reports or market research, to name just a few examples, this demand becomes even more important. The proper way to safeguard these critical documents is to use an electronic signature that identifies the sender and ensures the integrity of the message.

At this point it should be clarified that an electronic signature is not the same as a digitalized signature (ie. this is obtained by scanning a written signature). The electronic signature, by contrast, is characterized by having legal value and ensuring three functions:

• Identifying the signatory.
• Ensuring the integrity of the signed content.
• Non-repudiation by the signatory.

All in all, it maximizes confidentiality, since the content is disclosed only to the parties involved.

Another advantage of electronic signature is how simple it is to use. An electronic signature is based on the principle of public key and private key cryptography, this will be used to encrypt and decrypt documents.

DocPath has recognized the importance of electronic signatures in the business world, therefore DocPath has incorporated the E-Sign functionality to its portfolio of solutions, which allows users to produce documents with electronic signatures. With E-Sign, the user can digitally sign a PDF document with a private key and then the recipient can apply the signatory's public key to decrypt it. It's that simple.

Companies in any sector can benefit from digital signatures in their daily communications. This tool is useful, among other options, for receiving and sending documents to public administrations to perform financial transactions over the Internet and for signing electronic invoices.