Tradeline Supply Company, LLC accepts legitimate digital signatures that are compliant with California state law. However, brokers need to be aware of what constitutes a legally binding digital signature and use proper methods to digitally sign documents.
What Is a Digital Signature?
A digital signature, per California law, is an electronic stand-in for a manual signature intended to have the same force and effect as a manual signature. According to the CA Secretary of State, “digital signatures can be used for many transactions that currently require a hand written signature.”
How Do Digital Signatures Work?
A digital signature is only legitimate if:
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- It is unique to the person using it.
- It can be verified.
- It is solely controlled by the person using it.
- “It is linked to data in such a manner that if the data are changed, the digital signature is invalidated.”
- It complies with Secretary of State regulations.
For these reasons, digital signatures must be issued by a digital signing service that has been legally approved by state authorities.
What Does This Mean for Tradeline Brokers?
If you are a tradeline broker working with Tradeline Supply Company, LLC, you cannot legally sign a contract by simply typing in your name using a standard word processing or design software. This does not comply with state regulations and therefore it does not qualify as a legally valid digital signature.
To execute legitimate, legally binding digital signatures, you must use a digital signature provider, such as Adobe, that also provides authorized digital signature certificates to validate the signatures.
