It’s a beautiful day at work, and you’re sipping your victory round of coffee just after closing a huge deal for your organization. You are happy, your team is happy, and a good bonus for everyone. The company’s future looks great, and your days of prosperity are just on the horizon.
But then, months later, disaster strikes.
The business you signed the deal with comes up to you, claiming to have agreed upon different terms. They present a different version of the signed agreement. And there your business is, caught in the storm of a classic case of document tampering, resulting in a drudging, costly legal battle with a shadow cast upon your company’s reputation.
Scary to think about, right? While this might be a hypothetical scenario, unfortunately, it’s a widespread business problem.
Careful planning and trust in the people to adhere to it navigate us through this world of uncertainties. From handshakes to contracts, it’s the cornerstone of every business transaction.
But the threat of document tampering, coupled with the ease of digital manipulation, is omnipresent and poses a critical threat to businesses, their reputation, trust, and confidence.
Did you know? 90% of document tampering goes unnoticed until it’s too late.Building trust in the digital age At Signeasy, we understand the importance of trust in the digital age. We are one of the frontrunners in the industry, enabling global businesses to transact and do commerce with unwavering confidence.
This process begins when you initiate a signature request and continues until the very last moment when the signing is completed. Signeasy captures and records metadata throughout this process, like the identity of the signers, their verification method, their signing IP address, the time, and finally, the eSigned document’s fingerprint. This builds an electronically auditable trust for document integrity and signer authenticity.
However, higher trust and confidence in the contract’s integrity is required for high-stakes transactions, say a loan agreement or a billion-dollar business agreement. For such contracts, ‘trust’ is a primal need. To bring that unshakable level of confidence within the contract itself, we’re introducing the Signeasy Trust Seal .
What’s Signeasy’s Trust Seal? Trust Seal is contextually similar to a security seal you see on packaged water bottles or smartphone boxes, ensuring that the content of the bottle or box hasn’t been compromised.
Technically, Trust Seal is a Publick Key Infrastructure (PKI) based security feature that adds a globally recognized digital seal once all parties sign the document. It has the following components embedded right into your signed PDF.
A digital certificate of the document’s fingerprint from the Trust Service Provider. A timestamp certificate for the sealing event from the Trust Service Provider. The metadata required to validate the above certificates will provide a long-term validity of the document for decades. Here is a quick comparison between an eSigned contract backed by Audit Trail and one with a Trust Seal.
Benefits of using Trust Seal on your signed documents From preventing costly legal disputes to streamlining document verification, Signeasy’s Trust Seal is a commitment you make to your customers in building trust in the digital world, ensuring successful collaborations. Here are some key benefits of using Trust Seal.
1. Simplified verification The Trust Seal is cryptographically linked to your document, so you only need a standard PDF reader to validate the document’s integrity and authenticity. It eliminates reliance on external libraries, technical expertise, or even Signeasy for document verification.
2. Enhanced fraud mitigation with built-in tamper detection Any attempt to modify the sealed document, even a single comma, will break the Trust Seal, offering transparent and verifiable proof of alteration. This tamper-evident nature of the seal minimizes the risk of document manipulation and potential litigation.
3. Trusted timestamping When sealing a signed document, it also records the timestamp of the event. A trusted third party, the Timestamping Authority, generates this timestamp and is cryptographically linked to the Trust Seal. This verifies that the document was tamper-free when it was sealed and establishes a clear timeline of document integrity.
4. Increased trust and confidence Trust Seals are issued partnering with globally trusted certifying authorities, adding a layer of credibility and assurance to your documents, especially when they are of high value, demanding stringent legal requirements. By offering digitally sealed documents, you will foster trust and confidence with your clients, partners, and investors.
5. International compliance Signeasy’s Trust Seal is based on the globally accepted Public Key Infrastructure policies that align with international digital signature standards, providing broader acceptance and legal validity.
6. Guaranteed long-term validity Trust Seal is LTV (Long-Term Validation) enabled, meaning the signed document’s trustworthiness, integrity, and authenticity can be proved even after decades of sealing. Archive your documents with peace of mind.
Get started with Trust Seal Signeasy’s Trust Seal offers a powerful industry-standard solution to safeguard your eSigned documents from tampering and to foster long-term trust with your stakeholders.
How to enable Trust Seal? Trust Seal is now available for all Business Plus customers. On the Send for signature: Prepare documents page, you can enable the Trust Seal once you upload your documents.
How to check your document for tampering? Use Signeasy — Open the signed document directly in Signeasy. It will automatically verify the document’s authenticity, including the digital certificates, timestamp, and embedded validation data associated with the Trust Seal.Standard PDF Reader — If you prefer not to use Signeasy, you can still validate the document using most standard PDF readers. Look for the ‘Signatures’ or ‘Security’ panel. These panels will display information about the Trust Seal’s integrity and authenticity and allow you to verify their validity against a globally maintained trust list like the Adobe Approved Trust List.
Contact Us to learn more and get started with Trust Seal.
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