Our future economic vitality is at stake. Assuming that such an infrastructure is indeed developed, the Agency of Natural Resource should be poised to take advantage where it can be shown to be cost-effective. When governments adopt electronic commerce as the normal way of doing business, the hand-written signature may become a thing of the past. As more and more transactions are performed and documents are passed over open, common, insecure, and general purpose routes like the Internet, a signature of some sort will be still be needed. Digital signatures are harder to forge than hand-written signatures.
Parties can verify whom they are dealing with.
They can be assured that the document was not altered during transit. Since the signatures and sometimes the documents are encrypted, they can be used securely over the Internet. Digital signatures are one of the cornerstones of a viable electronic commerce. The State of Utah developed the first state government law in 1995. California adopted an earlier law enabling some state agencies to use digital signatures and in 1996 passed a general law modeled after Utah's.