How electronic signatures work

An electronic signature is not a picture of a signature. It is the combination of an intentional act by an identified person and a record that captures what they signed, when, and under what circumstances. Understanding those pieces explains why e-signing is accepted for most everyday business agreements.

The three parts of an e-signature

• Intent and consent. The signer is told they are signing electronically and agrees to do so. Without that, the rest is much weaker.
• Attribution. The signature is tied to a specific person — in practice through a unique link sent to their email address, plus the technical signals recorded when they use it.
• Record integrity. The signed document is retained in a form that can be reproduced, alongside a trail of the events that produced it.

What gets recorded when you sign online

When a document moves through Sign10X, each meaningful event is written to an append-only trail: the request being created and sent, each recipient's delivery and first view, each field completion and signature, and final completion. Timestamps accompany every event, and technical signals such as IP address and user agent are recorded where appropriate. When the last signer finishes, the signed PDF is generated with every value stamped in place.

How U.S. law treats electronic records

Two frameworks matter most. The federal ESIGN Act (2000) provides that a signature or record may not be denied legal effect solely because it is electronic. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), adopted in most states, does the same at state level. Both rest on consent, attribution and the ability to retain and accurately reproduce the record.

There are exceptions. Wills, certain court filings, some notarised instruments and a handful of consumer notices are treated differently or excluded, and specific industries add their own requirements. Sign10X does not provide legal advice — confirm your document type with qualified counsel before relying on e-signing for it.

Electronic signature vs digital signature

"Electronic signature" describes the legal act of signing electronically. "Digital signature" describes a cryptographic technique — a certificate-based hash that detects tampering. Digital signature technology can support an electronic signature, but the two terms are not interchangeable, and most business agreements are signed with an electronic signature backed by an audit trail rather than a personal certificate.

What makes a signed document defensible

1. Consent captured before the signature was applied.
2. A signing link that was unique to one recipient.
3. A complete, timestamped event trail you can produce on request.
4. The final document stored somewhere private and access-controlled.
5. Clear evidence of what the signer saw when they signed.

Those are exactly the properties Sign10X is built around — see the security architecture for how documents are stored and isolated, or start with the free plan to see the flow end to end.