If the electronically-signed document is submitted to a federal agency, then contact that agency to find out what electronic-signature application is their standard. The organization will have to obtain a PKI certificate (electronic signature certificate) from the federal agency.
For example, the Army and the Department of Defense Center for Contracting Excellence selected Silanis Technology's ApprovIT. (http://www.silanis.com/site/)
As far as I know, there is no one federal standard electronic signature application. Although most federal agencies are moving toward the use of smart cards for identification purposes, and ApprovIT already has the software to handle this.
If the forms will be used internally by the organization, then ApprovIT is about as good a choice as any.
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>>I am looking for agencies who have experience implementing electronic signature applications that provide electronically signed documents to govermental agencies. I am building a system for a client to electronically record information required on over 25 forms for administering a program administrated by the Feds. Some of these documents require my clients/agency staff signatures. Other documents also require signatures of their end clients but I am not focusing on that right now. I am focusing only in documents which must be signed by agency staffers. I want to find out what others have already done to electronically sign such documents. Such electronic signing must allow a means to 1) authenicate the signature to ensure that the proper person has made the electronic signature on the document; and 2) ensure that the document contents has not been altered since the document was electronically signed. Currently my application uses Access forms for entry of the data th
at previously was manually filled out on paper forms. This information can then be printed out into an exact duplicate of the paper form. Of course, the big advantage to this new system is the availability of all the data entered into forms in an electronic database, which is at the heart of the new system. Currently the Feds require that many internally developed document must be signed. Some of these must also be transmitted to the federal govt agency. What I am interested is in ways to output the "paper form image"; from my system, perhaps to a PDF file, and then add an electronic signature and additional means of ensuring that the document is not altered subsequently. This could then be stored in my database as an electronic document, as if it were scanned in. It could also be transmitted via email or other electronic transmission to the feds. Finally, it could also be faxed to the feds, thus tying into the current level of sophistication of the fed agency. I ha
ve looked into a Verisign product called Document Signer that appears to do this via an Acrobat Plug-in to digitally sign a PDF. My guess there are many other options available also.>>
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