Patent ID: 10943017

Abstract:
In daily business life, the personal signature on paper is being increasingly superseded by electronic signatures. In this situation, however, the problem of authentication of the signature exists. Since a signature card, for example, can also be used by a third party, it cannot be reliably determined with it that a signature in question also really originated from the alleged signer. Likewise, it cannot be assured that manipulations of the documents or signatures will not be performed at a later time.The present invention therefore proposes saving documents in a database and also verifying, via signatures files, signatures affixed in connection with the document. The signature files for this purpose are generated on the basis of a certificate of the signer and likewise stored in the online archive, wherein a fingerprint is created both for the signature file as such and also for its link to the document. In the case of a manipulation of even only one of the three components, the signature becomes invalid.