Types of electronic signatures and read confirmations

Many client exchanges end with one of two requests: “please confirm you’ve read this” or “please sign and return”. Both are easy to lose in an inbox, and both deserve an answer everyone in the conversation can see. Building them into Encloq meant being precise about what a signature made in software can mean in law, so this post starts with the types of electronic signatures that EU law recognises. One thing up front: Encloq signatures are not qualified electronic signatures.

The EU’s eIDAS Regulation, Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (opens in a new tab) as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 (opens in a new tab), knows three levels. Each builds on the one below it: every qualified signature is an advanced one, and every advanced signature is an electronic signature.

The 2024 amendment also brings European Digital Identity Wallets. Every Member State has to provide at least one, and the wallet must let every natural person sign with a qualified electronic signature free of charge, although Member States may limit the free use to non-professional purposes (Art. 5a). In Austria, ID Austria (opens in a new tab) can already create qualified signatures.

eIDAS defines the levels but not when you need which. It leaves Union and national law on contracts and form requirements untouched (Art. 2(3)), so the answer depends on the country:

• Austria: Contracts need no particular form unless a law says otherwise (§ 883 ABGB (opens in a new tab)). Where written form is required, a qualified electronic signature meets it (§ 4 SVG (opens in a new tab)). Wills can’t be made electronically, and some declarations, such as a guarantee given by a private individual, are only valid electronically with a confirmation from a notary or lawyer.
• Germany: Statutory written form can be replaced by electronic form only with a qualified electronic signature (§ 126a BGB (opens in a new tab)), and some declarations rule out electronic form entirely, such as terminating an employment contract (§ 623 BGB (opens in a new tab)). Text form (§ 126b BGB (opens in a new tab)) needs no signature at all.

Encloq signatures are not qualified electronic signatures, and Encloq is not a qualified trust service provider. Where the law asks for written form or a qualified signature, sign on paper or use a qualified trust service.

When you sign a PDF in Encloq, your drawn or saved signature goes onto the page, and a cryptographic signature from your signing identity is bound to that exact version. Everyone in the conversation sees who signed. If the file is changed afterwards, Encloq shows “Signature does not match” and “This file was changed after Anna signed it.”

I wanted a signature to behave like ink. Signing saves a new version and leaves the one before it untouched, and a signed version is never overwritten. That suits the large part of client work that needs no particular form, such as approving a draft or confirming a scope of work. The architecture page explains the building blocks.

Sometimes you don’t need agreement, only certainty that something was seen: a deadline reminder, updated terms, the final version of a report. An email read receipt is a weak tool for that. Its standard, RFC 8098 (opens in a new tab), describes asking for one as “merely a request” that the recipient’s software is “always free to silently ignore”, and warns that receipts “cannot be relied upon as a guarantee that a message was or was not seen by the recipient”.

A signed read confirmation in Encloq turns this around. When you choose “Ask for a signed read confirmation”, the recipient’s app keeps the message and its attachments sealed and shows “Read confirmation required”. Opening it signs a confirmation for this exact message and sends it to you, so reading and confirming are one step. You see “Waiting for a read confirmation” until it arrives, then “Read confirmed by” and the name, and in a group how many people have confirmed so far.

It records that the recipient’s account opened and confirmed this message at a given time, and nothing more. It doesn’t show that they understood or agreed, and it isn’t formal service where the law prescribes a way of delivery. It is also separate from the ordinary read status, which anyone can switch off in their privacy settings. Signed read confirmations are available from Encloq One.

Signature requests are part of Encloq Pro. Signing itself is included in every plan, so the people you ask don’t need Pro.

1. 1

   Attach the PDF.

   Add it to a message in the conversation and choose “Ask for a signature”.

2. 2

   Pick the signers in order.

   Under “Who should sign”, the order in which you select people is the signing order: “Signatures are collected in the order you pick - the first person signs first.” A document can carry up to 16 signatures, including any already on it.

3. 3

   Place the fields and send.

   “Place signature fields” lets you choose where each person signs. The request is tied to the version this message sends, so nobody signs an outdated draft.

4. 4

   Sign in turn.

   The next person chooses “Sign document”, places a drawn or saved signature and finishes with “Sign & send”. Everyone else sees whose turn it is, for example “Waiting for Anna to sign · 1 of 3 signed”, and at the end “Signing request complete - signed by” with the names.

The documents are PDFs, but paper can join in: the document scanner turns photographed pages into a single PDF that is ready to sign.