Legally Binding Signatures

Electronic signatures that you collect through Feathery are valid and legally binding.

Are electronic signatures legal?

The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, otherwise known as the E-Sign Act, states that electronic signatures shouldn’t be considered invalid simply because they’re electronic. In other words, e-signatures are completely legal and binding. They can hold up in court.

This means the electronic signatures you collect are legally binding in every state where federal law applies. In addition, some jurisdictions have either developed their own legislation or adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).

Best practices for collecting e-signatures

To ensure that the electronic signatures you collect will hold up in court, it’s important to keep several factors in mind:

1. There must be a legitimate intent to sign. That means you can leave no doubt that the signer deliberately signed the document in question. Feathery's signature field asks users to use a cursor or touchpad to purposefully "draw" their name, which makes the intent clear. You can also include a required "consent" field to be selected before the signature can be submitted.

2. You must ensure there is consent to do business electronically. For example, if your business uses online forms to capture signatures, you can add a consent clause and require signers to "click to accept" before the electronic signature can be submitted.

3. It’s important to retain any records associated with the eSignature, such as a complete copy of the signed digital document. Feathery retains your data and signatures and can serve as your source of truth or sync to your source of truth as well.

4. Collect your signatures in a flow powered by a secure service. Feathery is SOC 2 compliant and encrypts your user data in transmission and at rest.

5. Verify the user's identity to ensure the signature is authentic. Feathery offers a number of ways to confirm a user's identity directly in your form flow.

   • SMS one-time passcodes

   • Email magic links

   • One-click social logins

   • Government ID verification

     • Reach out to [e-mail] for pricing

   • Custom verification logic

     • Build your own bespoke verification logic with advanced logic and custom integrations to third-party APIs.

6. Collect an audit trail to ensure the signatures are not tampered with. Feathery supports comprehensive audit logging of resource access and creation on our enterprise plan. Contact [e-mail] for more information.