Electronic signature laws compared

The shared starting point

The US ESIGN Act says that a signature, contract or other record relating to a transaction in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce may not be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely on the grounds that it is in electronic form ². The EU eIDAS Regulation says an electronic signature shall not be denied legal effect or admissibility as evidence solely on the grounds that it is electronic or does not meet the requirements for qualified signatures ¹.

Singapore's Electronic Transactions Act defines a signature as a method, electronic or otherwise, used to identify a person and to indicate that person's intention ⁶. That definition puts the focus on what a signature does, not on the medium.

The EU three-tier model

Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 was adopted on 23 July 2014 and applies from 1 July 2016, with some provisions applying earlier ¹. It defines three levels of electronic signature and a separate electronic seal for legal persons ¹.

The United States

ESIGN is Pub. L. 106-229, enacted on 30 June 2000, with a general effective date of 1 October 2000 ². It adds consumer protections. When a law requires information to be given to a consumer in writing, an electronic record meets that rule only if the consumer has affirmatively consented after receiving disclosures about the right to paper copies, the right to withdraw consent and the hardware and software needed ².

ESIGN does not create signature tiers. The question is whether a record is valid as an electronic record, not which technology produced it ².

The United Kingdom and Canada

Section 7 of the UK Electronic Communications Act 2000 makes an electronic signature, and its certification, admissible in evidence on questions of the authenticity or integrity of a communication or data ³. It defines an electronic signature as anything in electronic form linked to a communication or data that purports to be used by the individual creating it to sign. Parts of the section were substituted on 22 July 2016 by S.I. 2016/696 ³.

Canada's federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act lets the Governor in Council prescribe technologies or processes for a secure electronic signature ⁴. A technology can be prescribed only if it is proved that the signature is unique to the person, under the person's sole control, able to identify the person and able to show whether the document changed after signing ⁴.

India, Singapore and the UN model law

India's Information Technology Act 2000 lets a subscriber authenticate an electronic record with a digital signature based on an asymmetric crypto system and hash function, under section 3 ⁵. Section 3A, inserted by the 2009 amending Act, adds electronic signatures and techniques considered reliable and specified in the Second Schedule ⁵. Under section 5, a legal requirement for a signature is deemed satisfied by an electronic signature affixed in the manner the Central Government prescribes ⁵.

Singapore's Electronic Transactions Act 2010, 2020 Revised Edition, has a separate category of secure electronic signature, defined by reference to section 18 ⁶. Its First Schedule lists matters to which the writing and signature provisions do not apply ⁶.

Many national laws draw on UN work. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures was adopted on 5 July 2001. UNCITRAL says it sets criteria of technical reliability for equivalence between electronic and handwritten signatures and takes a technology-neutral approach ⁷.