Paperless, What is still missing?2021.03.08

In recent years, with the popularization and application of mobile Internet and the vigorous promotion of e-government services by governments in many countries, it can be said that basically all government affairs can be handled online in many countries. Not only that, but the paperless of license documents such as e-licenses and e-invoices has also been basically popularized. In other words, many countries (including China) have achieved great success in the popularization of paperless in all walks of life.

The topic of this blog post is: Paperless, What is still missing? Let me give the answer directly. The lack of one word -"Trustworthy", we just completed the paperless system transformation, provided users with paperless services, improved work efficiency, reduced paper, reduced costs and protected the environment and so on. However, what we need to improve is "Trusted Paperless".

What is trusted paperless? Let me talk about the status quo of current paperless. Paperless means turning paper-based service result documents, notification documents, license documents, archive files, etc. into paperless electronic documents, which are generally PDF format documents. The result file to users for the e-government service is no longer a printed paper file, but a PDF file. The question is, how to confirm the authenticity of this PDF file? Even some PDF files have an official e-seal or an officer e-signature. Because these PDF files are very easy to be counterfeited, the production of such PDF files can be said to be zero threshold. This is the main reason why there are frequent cases of counterfeiting official documents of the government agencies.

What is trusted paperless? It is to use digital signature technology to digitally sign paperless documents, thereby ensuring that the identity of the document is trusted and will not be illegally tampered with and illegally counterfeited. At the same time, the time of publication of the document is guaranteed due to the trusted timestamp signature. In other words, only need to add digital signature and timestamp signature to PDF files generated by the management information systems to achieve trusted paperless, which can effectively ensure that all business documents cannot be counterfeited. People will NOT be deceived by the fake official documents again, which can effectively protect the safety of personal property and greatly reduce losses caused by fraudulent. The last step of paperless is trusted paperless – document digital signature, the very important last step!

Since trusted paperless is so important, and many countries have issued the electronic signature laws and related regulations that must use digital signature technology to ensure the security and trusted of e-documents, but why are there many government official documents, work results documents, e-certificates, etc. still have not achieved trusted paperless? I believe that there are two problems: one is that the IT system managers do not pay enough attention to it, or more accurately, they have not realized the necessity and importance of trusted paperless. This is also the reason why I want to write this article. All electronic documents generated by the management information system should have digital signatures.

The second reason may be that the implementation of document digital signature is still a high-cost and extremely complicated task, and it is not easy to implement. In fact, MeSign Technology have multi-year PKI technology accumulation and launched the MeSignDoc services, which makes digital signature of PDF documents very simple and very cheap. It is simple to just select the PDF file to be signed, then complete the digital signature with one click. It’s so cheap that you can digitally sign 20 PDF files for only US$9.80! There is no complicated application and purchase of the PDF signing certificate, no need to purchase a HSM device, no need to purchase a timestamp service, no need to purchase an e-signature tool software, just download the MeSign App for free, and spend US$9.80 to buy the Starter Edition service! If the users want the business management system to implement fully automatic document digital signature, they can connect the E-sign API or the E-signature System to automatically complete the digital signature of the PDF file generated by the business management system, thus complete the trusted paperless automatically.

Maybe you want to say, "You are advertising your company's products, are you digressing?". No digression, the topic is: Paperless, What is still missing? I first tell you what is missing, the "trustworthy" is missing, and it must be trusted paperless in order to truly complete the paperless transformation and truly achieve paperless. How to achieve trusted paperless? I like to show you a direction, and I must also tell you clearly that this is not a difficult task. We have solved it for you. We have built a cryptographic infrastructure and developed an e-signature tool software and an e-signature implementation system to help you achieve one click from "the PDF file to be signed" to ”the signed PDF file", and the cost is very low! More importantly: The signed PDF file is Adobe's global trusted and has legal effect worldwide.

Of course, you can also go to the market to see if there is a similar solution. When choosing a solution, you must pay attention to check two points: First, whether the solution requires you to upload the PDF file to be signed to the e-signature platform they provide, If this is the case, it is not feasible, because what you need is the document to be signed, rather than having to disclose the document to the e-signature provider to complete the e-signature. The second is to ask the solution provider to provide you with a signed document sample, open it with Adobe Reader to check if it is signed with the e-signature platform's signing certificate or the signer's signing certificate. If there is a signature problem warning or the signing certificate is not the signer’s certificate, this solution cannot be used. Finally, there is one more thing to note: you don’t need to purchase a complex system with many non-signature related functions, you only need an e-signature tool to let your documents to be signed in and out of the signed documents. The other tasks should be done by your business system, you don’t need to spend wrong money to buy a superfluous system to complete the simple digital signature work.

Finally, to summarize, paperless must be trusted paperless! To achieve trusted paperless, you only need an e-signature tool, and you only need to add a digital signature process to your management information system! It's not difficult to realize trusted paperless now since the MeSignDoc services come out!