Electronic Signatures for eArchiving

Countries around the world have updated legislation to allow replacing expensive paper archives with an electronic archiving (eArchiving) solution, provided the original documents are digitally signed during the scanning and eArchiving process. The global move toward eArchiving solutions is expected to save companies billions in expenses.

Until the recent legislation changes, companies were obliged to manage or outsource expensive physical archiving in order to comply with the requirement to present original documents during a legal dispute.

Using legally binding electronic signatures, however, companies are now able to legally sign documents before entering them into an eArchive, freeing them from the original paperwork.

What are electronic signatures?

Electronic signatures enable organizations to seal archived documents. Any changes made to these documents will be instantly visible as the seal is "broken". This means signer authenticity is guaranteed, and that accountability, data integrity and non-repudiation of documents and transactions is ensured.

Typical adopters of such solutions include the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, governmental departments, universities and legal offices, among others.

How does CoSign for eArchiving work?

CoSign for eArchiving is a combined hardware / software solution:

Hardware: the tamper-proof CoSign hardware appliance enables centralized key generation, storage and signing operations.

Software: the software component of CoSign serves to integrate the solution with various 3rd party applications (such as Microsoft® Word, Excel®, Outlook®, Adobe Acrobat, etc) and User Management Systems (such as Active Directory).