All you need to know about eSign Aadhaar services

Under the Information Technology Act of the year 2000, to create electronic signatures you have to get a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) provided by Certifying Authorities (CA) which are licensed by the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA).

Your address and identity need to be verified before you get a Digital Signature Certificate from the Certifying Authorities. The electronic signature approach requires a private key secured with a pin or a password. The scheme includes in person verification of people and documents which cannot be catered to a billion plus people. To offer paperless services to the citizens, the eSign Aadhaar approach has been adopted.

In order to address the shortcomings of the traditional approach, the Government of India in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology has released a simple online service that lets you digitally verify the electronic documents using eSign.

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What is it?

eSign lets you use an online service to sign your electronic documents. eSign Aadhaar e-KYC is an integrated service that facilitates the issuing of a Digital Signature Certificate and also helps in using eSign on other documents. To avail eSign it is mandatory that you possess Aadhaar.

What benefits can you expect?

Since it is an online service, you can easily access it securely from anywhere, anytime. This enables you with the functionality to perform eSign of documents through Aadhaar e-KYC and also to authorize signers. This doesn”t require the use of hardware tokens.

Helps with obtaining signatures that are legally valid

The process of eSign requires your consent, generation of Digital Signature Certificate, creation and affixation of Digital Signature and acknowledgment of Digital Signature Certificate according to the Information Technology Act, 2000. It helps with enforcing compliance with the use of API specifications. To ensure that the transactions are preserved, a comprehensive electronic audit trail is used.

Flexibility and ease of implementation

eSign is easy to implement and flexible, it gives you several authentication options that are in line with the e-KYC aadhaar service. The Aadhaar number is also recorded to identify the user. eSign enables all Aadhaar holders easy access to verified Digital Signature service, the authentication options include OTP and biometric.

High privacy: eSign assures you the privacy of your signature, it uses only the signature or thumb impression portion of the document for verification instead of using the entire document.

Safe and secure: The e-authentication guidelines govern the eSign service. Your signature is carried out through a backend server and the authentication is carried out through the e-KYC service. To prevent the misuse and to enhance the security of eSign, the private keys are programmed on Hardware Security Module and eradicated.

eSign services have proved to be a boon for the ever-growing, already huge population. This has streamlined the process and is time saving and efficient. Third parties have also launched eSign services, this is becoming a growing business trend. However, we have listed all that you need to know about eSign Aadhaar services. Hope it was worth your while.