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Hollywood Gets Electronic Signatures Wrong

I had the chance to watch the latest episode of 24 last night (thanks to hulu.com).  In the episode one of the bad guys offers to show where a biological weapon is in exchange for immunity and the President agrees to the deal.  Since they have no time to waste they decide to have the President sign the immunity order online!

You can imagine how interested I am to see how Hollywood, with all of its imagination and creativity, gets a document signed online.  Drum roll please….

Hollywood’s answer to getting an important document signed is… to have a Webex session where they share the immunity order online and then have the President sign it  ”digitally”.  The President signs it using one of those signature pads that you sign at the grocery store.  How disappointing.

Here is where Hollywood got it wrong.

1. Urgency - If you have someone on the phone and need to get an agreement signed quickly DON’T make them go find a computer with an internet connection for a Webex session.  Use a voice signature with the person on the phone to get the document signed.   It is faster and ESIGN compliant. 

2. Digital vs. Electronic - The President signed the immunity agreement with an electronic signature, not a digital signature as they stated.  We can get into the differences between the two another time.

3. ESIGN Compliance - One of the requirements to be ESIGN compliant is that all parties have to be provided with a copy of or have access to the signed agreement.  It didn’t look like that was the case here.

I am sure Webex paid a lot of money for its product placement in the episode.  Too bad that it was a 2nd rate solution.  

If you need to get an agreement signed and you have your customer on the phone, use ContractPal’s voice signatures to save time and hassle.

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