Now digital documents can be electronically sealed in accordance with the eIDAS regulation. Tips are available from the signature experts.

Berlin, 10 April 2017. secrypt GmbH now enables the creation of electronic seals in accordance with the European signature regulation eIDAS. The signature experts at secrypt GmbH have now compiled a few tips for using the e-seals.

eIDAS-compliant seal generation with out-of-the-box software solutions from secrypt

Companies, public authorities and other legal entities can now prove the integrity and authenticity of their digital documents throughout the EU with a legally compliant company stamp or official seal. Depending on the respective document volume and the degree of process automation, the following options can be considered:

On the one hand, the electronic seal can be applied manually to individual documents using the signature software digiSeal^®office from secrypt GmbH. The PIN of the sealing card must be entered again for each sealing process. Therefore, this solution is particularly recommended if only a few documents need to be sealed from time to time. Alternatively, digiSeal^®office pro allows the sealing of 25, 50, 100 or 500 documents in a stack – with only one PIN entry. The seal server digiSeal^®server from secrypt is used for high-volume processes with thousands and millions of documents. This enables high-performance automated central seal generation. To ensure that only authorized employees and processes can trigger the e-seal, access rights must be stored in the signature server. If there are personnel changes, only an adjustment of the access rights is required – a new application for the e-seal at the trust service provider (VDA) is not necessary. Because the seal certificate is valid for the entire organization and is no longer bound to a single person.

To seal individual documents at the workstation, users require a VDA seal card, e.g. from D-TRUST GmbH, in addition to the signature software. A multi-sealing card is required for batch and server-based sealing. In addition, there is a card reader in all cases. The application for the seal card is made on behalf of the organisation, for example by the managing director or authorised signatory at the VDA. Depending on the type of organisation, a corresponding certificate must be enclosed, such as an extract from the commercial register.

The necessary sealing equipment is available immediately at www.secrypt.de/solutions/electronic-seal.

Application scenarios of the electronic seal

With the electronic stamp, entire paper archives as well as incoming mail can now be digitized in a legally compliant manner in accordance with TR RESISCAN. The digiSeal^®server simply applies the E-seal automatically to the digitalisat after completion of the scanning process. Thus, the scan operator no longer has to enter his signature PIN individually for each digitized document. In addition, a seal certificate on a multi-seal card is sufficient – signature cards for each individual scan operator are no longer required.

And even originally digital documents, including notices, certificates, invoices or account statements, can be provided with the strong integrity protection. All digital documents can then be stored in the electronic archive.

“The electronic seal accelerates digital document processes and helps to further reduce the volume of paper in an extremely convenient and at the same time legally binding European way. With us, customers receive everything from a single source: from consulting, signature software and sealing cards to card readers,” says Tatami Michalek, Managing Director of secrypt GmbH.