E-signature glossary

The terms you will meet when reading about electronic signatures, defined without jargon.

Legal terms

ESIGN Act: The U.S. federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, in force since October 2000. Gives electronic signatures and records legal effect in interstate commerce. See the ESIGN Act.
UETA: The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, a model state statute enacted in substantially identical form by 49 states. See UETA.
ESRA: The Electronic Signatures and Records Act — New York's state statute, which occupies the role UETA occupies elsewhere.
eIDAS: The EU regulation governing electronic identification and trust services, in force since July 2016, which defines tiers of electronic signature. See eIDAS.
Simple electronic signature: The broadest eIDAS tier: any electronic data used by a signatory to sign. Carries no automatic cross-border legal presumption under eIDAS itself.
Advanced electronic signature (AES): An eIDAS tier requiring the signature to be uniquely linked to and capable of identifying the signatory, created under the signatory's sole control, and linked to the signed data so changes are detectable.
Qualified electronic signature (QES): The highest eIDAS tier: an advanced signature created with a qualified device and based on a qualified certificate. Has the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature across the EU.
Wet signature: An ink signature applied by hand to paper. Still required for some documents and by some counterparties.
Attribution: The ability to show that a signature belongs to a particular person. Under UETA, attribution may be shown by any means, including the person's own conduct.

Technical terms

Digital signature: A cryptographic technique using a private key to sign and a public key to verify, which also makes any subsequent change to the document detectable. Not the same thing as an electronic signature. See electronic vs. digital signatures.
PKI (public key infrastructure): The system of certificate authorities, certificates, and key pairs that binds a public key to an identity. See certificates and PKI.
Certificate authority (CA): An entity that issues digital certificates and vouches, to a defined standard, that a public key belongs to a particular identity.
Audit trail: The chronological record of events in a signing process — who opened the document, how they authenticated, when they signed, from what address and device. The evidence behind a signature. See audit trails.
Document hash: A short cryptographic fingerprint of a file. If the file changes, the hash changes. Its presence in an audit trail is what makes non-alteration provable.
Envelope: A container holding a set of documents, their recipients, and their signing sequence. The term used by most platforms.
Countersignature: A signature applied by a second party — typically the sending organisation — after the counterparty has signed.

Notarisation terms

RON (remote online notarization): A notarial act performed over live audio-video with identity proofing and, usually, session recording. See remote online notarization.
Knowledge-based authentication (KBA): Identity proofing through questions generated from public records — for example, former addresses or prior lenders. Commonly required for RON.
Notarial certificate: The notary's statement of what was done — for example an acknowledgment or a jurat — executed with the notary's signature and seal.
Electronic journal: A notary's sequential record of notarial acts, required in electronic form by most RON-authorising states.