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Recognized Electronic Signature

TL;DR ✨

The author went through the process of obtaining a recognized electronic signature. How is one obtained, and what is it actually for?

A recognized electronic signature can be thought of as the unambiguous identification of a person in the electronic world. It can be used to communicate with public authorities and other institutions. Mr. Peterka, for example, covers the subject in detail, and searching Google for recognized electronic signature returns more than enough material for a deeper study of the technical principles.

The author went through the process of obtaining a recognized electronic signature. How is one obtained, and what is it actually for?

A recognized electronic signature can be thought of as the unambiguous identification of a person in the electronic world. It can be used to communicate with public authorities and other institutions. Mr. Peterka, for example, covers the subject in detail, and searching Google for recognized electronic signature returns more than enough material for a deeper study of the technical principles.

Email communication does not provide verifiable identification, because an email address can be spoofed. Instructions for email spoofing can be found, for example, here. To repeat: email communication is not, and never will be, trustworthy without an electronic signature.

From the author's perspective, the signature offers the following practical benefits:

  1. There is no need to run around the city or drive between individual offices to deliver documents to each one separately. Everything can be handled from a computer at a desk. Data boxes are, of course, increasingly taking over this role.
  2. Most accounting software can electronically sign an invoice, which makes it more trustworthy. Among other things, this means there is no need to mail a manually signed invoice; for some larger corporations, it can simply be sent electronically.
  3. When important or evidentiary materials are sent, for example to a court or the police, email communication provides unambiguous identification and can serve as evidence in subsequent disputes.
  4. A lawyer is not required when submitting an application for an electronic payment order. With a recognized electronic signature, it can be done without one.
  5. There is no need to visit a post office for a certified signature when signing an NDA or other sensitive documents. An electronic signature is sufficient.

How do you obtain an electronic signature?

It is not particularly complicated. Complete the following forms: http://www.postsignum.cz/podnikatele_osvc.html.

There are three in total:

1. Agreement on the provision of certification services

  1. Information for issuing the certificate

3. Cover sheet

Complete and print everything, then visit a Czech Post branch with a Czech POINT counter and go to the appropriate desk. After the documents are submitted, the clerk enters them into the information system, which takes about 15 to 30 minutes. An email with confirmation and a password then arrives. The certificate is delivered later; process it with the iSignum application, make sure the certificate password is safely recorded, and that is it. The certificate is ready.

The greater challenge is persuading applications to accept the certificate. Some have trouble verifying its authenticity. This can be resolved easily by importing the root certificates, which allows the authenticity of the certificate to be verified, for example in Mozilla Thunderbird.

It takes a little patience and searching, but the result is worth the effort.

How do you sign PDFs?

There are several ways to sign PDFs. Adobe Reader itself can use a certificate to sign a PDF, or the paid VerisignIT application can be used. Instructions for importing a certificate and configuring Adobe Reader are available here.

For Linux systems, the author found the JSignPdf application. It is free, written in Java, and so far appears to work as intended, including from the command line.