SignDoc Feature: Option to add digital certificates as additional layer of trust

A key motivation for SignDoc customers has always been that signers can sign electronic documents with a handwritten electronic signature without the burden of having to acquire a smart card based certificate or any other security token previously. Biometrics at its best has the advantage to erect no barriers and to impose no artificial hurdles. 

SOFTPRO’s signing technology manifested in the SignDoc SDK that forms the robust base of all SignDoc flavors and versions ensures that unwanted manipulations in documents can and will be detected and that document and signature are hammered into an inseparable unity. This has so far been accomplished using so called self-signed certificates.

During the installation of SignDoc users now can choose to use their own third-party certificate they have for example acquired from a trust center. 

The certificate can reside in the file-system or in the Windows Certificate Store and comes into use when signing.

Although this is a feature likely to be used primarily in larger installations it is available to everybody owning a digital certificate. Adequate PKCS#12/ X.509 certificates can be obtained from many vendors and trust centers, e.g. VeriSign.

When opening a document signed by means of a third party certificate in for example Adobe Reader the corresponding signature can be added to the set of trusted signatures which enables subsequent validation.

This process can be used to add an additional layer of trust to the overall process relying on the security of biometric signatures amalgamated with the signed document using standard cryptographic methods.

Information about Encryption Standards Wikipedia EN about ... PKCS12Wikipedia EN about ... X.509