Be Sure Who is Signing your Document Online

This post continues our series on the all new Secured Signing with a look at the options available for stronger verification of identity. Secured Signing now gives you the option to use text messages as a second form of identity confirmation. Inviting people to sign documents online is much more secure and reliable, not to mention quicker and easier, than sending them by post. With two factor authentication, your confidence in who is signing your document is even higher!

When we send documents by post, we take it on faith that the person who signs is actually the person intended.  In reality, a physical address is usually shared by a number of people including all the members of a family or all the employees in a business. Sending an invitation by email, to sign a document online, significantly increases the confidence your document is being signed by the right person. For most people, an email address is personal, so only your invitee will have access to sign the document.

As part of our project to deliver an online Tax File Number (TFN) Declaration for the Australian Tax Office (ATO) a second form of identity verification was required. To meet this requirement a text message (SMS) was included in the signing process to provide even stronger confidence in the identity of the person signing the declaration. Secured Signing is pleased to now offer two factor authentication as a standard part of We Sign to give you even greater confidence you have the right people signing your documents.

You have the option of enabling SMS in the My Account area when you log in to Secured Signing.  If you do so, the next time you invite someone to sign a document, each invitee will have a checkbox to enable the use of SMS for that invitation. For each invitee that has the checkbox ticked, you are prompted to supply the mobile phone number for that person. When the invitee starts the signing process they will be sent a code by SMS to the number provided. The code needs to be entered before the document can be signed.

Using SMS as a second form of identity confirmation greatly increases your confidence the person you invited to sign your document is in fact the person who signs it. This approach is a simple and common way to have people verify who they are. A number of Internet banking systems combine a traditional password with a code sent by SMS.

Next time you invite someone to sign your document online with Secured Signing, consider taking advantage of the extra peace of mind by using SMS to be doubly sure the right person is signing your document.

As always, if you need a hand be sure to check out the demonstration videos and the step by step instructions on the website. Of course you can always get in touch with our friendly support team for help too!


Till next time

Cheers, John