When sending red packets on WeChat or making purchases on Taobao for the first few times, one might have this question in mind or for their friends: is it reliable, sending or receiving money with just a tap on the smartphone or a click of the mouse? They are no magic, just increasingly popular applications of electronic signature, or e-signature, in our daily life in an era of Internet and digital technology. In addition to the e-commerce scenarios above, it is already a common practice to transmit and retain files in electronic formats for business activities. However, legal instruments which are customarily regarded as more rigorous than e-commerce transactions are still generally forbidden or unnoticed for the application of electronic signature. In practice, when it is required to execute legal instruments officially, people would still print them out and affix their seals or signatures physically as they traditionally do. This would inevitably incur significant time costs for the execution process. Moreover, given the persistent issue of “fake stamps”, this time-consuming traditional approach may not necessarily render a higher reliability.
Continue Reading A Comprehensive Guide to Electronic Signature, from a Legal Perspective