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In the wake of the electronic signature, electronic sealing is gradually gaining ground in the business world.
Gone are the traditional stamp pads, replaced by a simple, secure digital solution. Gadget or must-have? You decide! We've written this article to shed some light on its usefulness and give you all the keys you need to determine whether this tool is right for your business and your practices.
What is electronic sealing?
Electronic sealing: definition and legal framework
Electronic sealing is defined in article 3.25 of the eIDAS regulation.
To put it simply :
- It is a dematerialized version of the company stampguaranteeing the authenticity and integrity of digital documents.
- It is intended for legal entities (companies, institutions, organizations...).
- Its major advantage is its ability to electronically seal large volumes of documents. Where traditional stamps have to be manually affixed to each document).
What's the difference between electronic sealing and company stamps?
There are major differences in security methods:
- Electronic sealing Based on a digital method, it guarantees the authentication of a legal entity and the integrity of an electronic document.
- Company stamp Stamps: affixed using a manual authentication method, they are subject to the risk of falsification (a stamp can easily be copied and modified!).
The electronic seal therefore offers greater legal certainty than the traditional stamp.
How does electronic sealing work?
Each entity has its own electronic certificate to guarantee thedocument authenticity (the legal entity holding the certificate). To electronically seal a document, the legal entity must use a private keywhich is unique to the legal entity.
Any modification made to the document after sealing is detectable. The signatory can verify this with a public keyspecific to the legal entity's certificate. If the seal is validated with the public key, this confirms that the document has not been altered in the meantime.
Electronic sealing can be fully automated, manual or a combination of both. You can, for example, automate the sealing of your pay slips. But it may be preferable to continue sealing your NDAs manually (especially if they reveal know-how, marketing strategy, source code, etc.).
What is the legal value of an electronic seal?
The different levels of electronic seal security
The European eIDAS regulation establishes three levels of security for electronic sealing simple, advanced and qualified. Each of these levels offers a different degree of security and authenticity, to suit different needs.
The security level of an electronic seal depends on the type of digital certificate certificate.
When to combine electronic signature and electronic seal?
Let's take the example of an employment contract to illustrate how sealing and electronic signature can be combined:
- Contract origin The electronic stamp assures the new recruit that the contract originates from the hiring company.
- Contract integrity The electronic seal enables the company to ensure that the contract has not been modified before it is signed (e.g. salary increase).
- Signatory identification The electronic signature guarantees the identity of the signatory.
Good to know The more sensitive the document (for example, a company discloses the source code at the heart of its product to a freelance developer). The more it is advisable to combine electronic sealing and signature for optimum security.
For which documents should electronic sealing be used?
Electronic sealing can be used for a wide range of corporate documents:
- HR : Pay slips.
- Purchasing SSI policy, CSR policy.
- Marketing and Sales Sales and Marketing: General terms and conditions, sales and marketing documentation, price lists, catalogs, product sheets, invoices.
- Administration and Finance Financial reports, intellectual property documents.
- Education Student life contribution certificates, transcripts.
- Industry Technical documentation, operating instructions, certificates of conformity, reports.
- Real estate : Real estate agent certifications.
- Bank RIB, account statements, payment schedules.
- Legal: Fee notes, explanatory notes, confidentiality policies.
How to choose an electronic sealing tool
Upstream: identify your company's specific regulatory needs
The aim is to determine the type of certificate to use according to your specific requirements, for example :
- Tax-compliant electronic invoicing ;
- Tax copy of invoices ;
- Reliable copy;
- SYLAE (subsidized contracts) ;
- Other specific regulatory requirements.
Consider your company's other needs as well:
- Sealing of external documents (brochures, product sheets, terms and conditions, technical documents, etc.);
- Stashing internal documents (circulars, internal regulations, charter, etc.).
Lex Persona can help you choose the right sealing solution to meet your functional and regulatory requirements.
Explain your company's IT context
A detailed description of your company's IT context will enable the service provider to determine the architecture best suited to your business. Lex Persona will guide you in the choice of a corporate certificate adapted to your organizational requirements and regulatory requirements.
Get help from an electronic sealing service provider
After understanding your business processthe service provider can guide you towards the most appropriate product. Lex Persona defines an operating architecture adapted to your security policy and the volume of data to be signed.
But also many other advantages we're proud of:
- Architectural flexibility: our offering is available in full SaaS AND hybrid (On premise like) versions, unlike competing products. Our solution divides the electronic sealing process into two phases. Document fingerprinting is carried out on the customer's premises, ensuring document confidentiality. Lex Persona encrypts the fingerprint. This approach enables us to manage the complexity of hosting the certificate on specialized cryptographic servers for fingerprint encryption.
- Adaptable sealing: Lex Persona offers a software package designed to integrate electronic sealing into a variety of technical contexts (shared web service, batch processing chain, etc.), at no extra cost.
- Qualified electronic seal Our sealing solution provides you with the most secure seal in compliance with the eIDAS regulation.
- Qualified time-stamping This method provides you with reliable proof, guaranteeing the validity of the seal certificate at the time of sealing and reinforcing its legal value and validity over time.
- Unique 2D-Doc sealing offer 2D-Doc sealing is a visible seal, rarely offered by other providers, and particularly suitable when paper and digital versions of the same document need to coexist.
- Multiple format support: Our solutions are compatible with PAdES, XAdES and CAdES formats, enabling you to apply stamps to PDF documents, XML documents and even videos, libraries, compressed files and more.
- Self-supporting seal The electronic seal embeds all the information required for its complete validation in the future. Unlike many other solutions on the market, the electronic seal never expires.
Conclusion
Protection against forgery, simplified document flow management, productivity gains. If you manage large volumes of corporate documents (pay slips, invoices, digital contractsetc.), electronic sealing is a modern solution offering both security and speed. The Lex Persona plus? By offering both an electronic sealing solution and electronic signature solution, you don't have to juggle between several service providers/tools.
You can install the caching tool directly in your business applications or servers, with the certainty of a reliable and secure tool. In fact, our electronic sealing solutions are eIDAS-compliant, and their reliability is enhanced by qualified time-stamping. Our ISO 27001 and HDS certifications underline our dedication to maintaining the highest standards of data security.
Would you like to switch to electronic sealing? Contact us
