Comment by jsiepkes
4 years ago
I don't know where you live but in the EU eIDAS regulation sees a scanned document as a Simple Electronic Signature (SES). This is the most basic possible form of signing which is accepted.
So within the EU a scanned document is valid though the law does say the method used needs to be proportional to whats at stake.
I've noticed that the court documents issued by civil courts in Turkey have electronic signatures with signed hashes for each of the signatories (judge, clerk and all else) in every document. To make people not freak out, they seem to have also added a PNG image of a slightly smeared generic wet-ink looking signature above the hash so it looks real on first sight. But if you look closely the signatures are all the same, and the signature says e-imza (e-signature) in cursive. Heh.
Another cool thing, the whole document itself does have a hash where you can go to the website of the ministry of justice and input the hash to verify the document. It was unexpectedly neat.
Comments in this sub-thread need to distinguish between two dimensions to a signature: is it capable of legally binding the signatory? In most cases, any format will do. Is it going to be easy to enforce (I.e., to prove it was you that signed, and not your dog headbutting your mouse?) That's a damn sight harder, and many forms of (legally valid!) E-signature might not be accepted for that reason. Depends how much assurance is needed in the circumstances.