This Unoffical Note provides an overview of a suggested structure of Legal XML signatures, with particular reference to court filings. This is a Legal XML Work Group Unofficial Note for review and discussion by interested Members. Introduction 1.1 Problem 1.2 Proposed Solution 1.3 Assumptions 1.4 Requirements 1.5 Dependencies 1.6 Definitions 2. 2.D.1 OtherSignatureInformation tag 1. Almost all documents are authenticated by the simple method of reading the original signature of the person who signed it in ink.
Exceptions exist for certified or authenticated copies of public filings and notarized documents.
With these classes of documents, special care is taken to have a third party confirm the authenticity of the signature. With notarized documents, the signature is witnessed by an official who is charged by law and bonded by a surety to record identities of signers properly. With certified or authenticated documents, one official certifies that the signature on an official document is that of another official authorized by law to issue it. Instead, a host of authentication technologies are emerging. In the paper world, it is also relatively easy to insure that a document has not been altered since it was signed because there is an original which can be expertly examined forensically for erasures and other alterations.