As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread around the world, businesses and government institutions realize that the use of paper and manual signature for transactions is no longer practical. It is common nowadays to use different digital platforms that allow users to upload document and sign it anytime and anywhere.
Digital transformation plays a key part in updating the corporate system for most companies, and digital signature is one of the areas that present an opportunity in pushing this strategy. Employees spend countless hours chasing signatures and approvals, and having to print, scan, and e-mail documents afterwards which lengthen the process causing delays. A concern of adopters of this application is how best to adopt digital signatures while ensuring compliance with the ever-changing regulations.
The Department of Trade and Industry – Philippine Accreditation Bureau (DTI-PAB) participated in the free live product demo of Securemetric Technology PH entitled “Remain Resilient Amid the Global Health Crisis with Signing Cloud Digital Signature” on April 24, 2020 at 11:00 am. The purpose of the webinar is to introduce the cloud based digital platform “Signing Cloud” and share how the application can help employees work remotely during COVID-19 lockdown.
Mr. Woo Swee Tech, Regional Sales Vice President discussed the brief background of signing cloud. The system features include a unique signing experience for all channels (desktop and/or mobile devices), and offer long term validation and non-repudiation of the time and date of transaction. There are also security features like SMS One-Time Pin (OTP), Biometric fingerprint and FIDO-like Authentication.
Mr. William Dimaano, Head of Technology of Securemetric Philippines, was the resource speaker for the webinar. He presented a demo of the application from the registration, introduction of the Dashboard, document signing flow, document verification and to personalization of account. He mentioned that it is a simple, effective, valid and safe application that electronic signing can be done conveniently using a smartphone with internet connection. Mr. Dimaano stressed that according to the Electronic Commerce Act, the Philippine government acknowledges digital signatures as legally binding.
The DTI-PAB is designated as the accreditation and assessment body for certification authorities based on its mandate and in accordance with the provisions of the E-Commerce Act. DTI-PAB also issues the necessary criteria and guidelines for accreditation of certification authorities to ensure security and interoperability of systems and certificates, as well as compliance with the prescribed standards for digital signatures.
PAB is the national accreditation of the Philippines and is a signatory member to ILAC, IAF and APAC for Mutual Recognition Arrangement on scopes and sub-scopes of testing and calibration, inspection, medical testing, environmental management system, food safety management system and quality management system. PAB also conducts continuous awareness programs to promote accreditation services and ensure that information are properly communicated and disseminated.
Digital signatures present benefits which guarantees documents have not been tampered with and eliminate printed copies of documents, among others. It can be applied to legal contracts, board resolutions, remote bank account opening, digital transcripts and other documents. It is clear that the pandemic during this modern digital information age will lead to more and more institutions developing these types of legally binding instrument technologies. COVID-19 has and will continue to bring a “new normal” to the world.