ESIGN Act
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Definition
The ESIGN Act is the US federal law, passed in 2000, that gives electronic signatures the same legal standing as handwritten ones, provided the signer shows intent, consents to doing business electronically, and the record is retained accurately.
The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act took effect on October 1, 2000, and settled a question that had stalled online business for years: is a signature still a signature when there's no pen? Its answer is direct. A contract or record can't be denied legal effect solely because it's electronic.
What it actually requires
The statute doesn't prescribe a technology. It asks for four things in practice: intent to sign, consent to transact electronically, a way to attribute the signature to the person who made it, and a retained record the signer can access later. A typed name can qualify; so can a drawn signature or a click, as long as those four conditions hold and you can prove them afterward.
What it doesn't cover
A handful of documents stay on paper under ESIGN: wills and testamentary trusts, family-law matters like adoption and divorce, court orders, utility cancellation notices, insurance benefit cancellations, and product recalls. If your document is a waiver, an NDA, a lease application, or a service agreement, you're inside ESIGN's scope.
ESIGN and UETA together
ESIGN operates federally and works alongside UETA, the state-level model law that 49 states had already been adopting since 1999. Where a state has UETA, the two line up; where it doesn't (New York runs its own ESRA statute), ESIGN fills the gap. For most US businesses the practical takeaway is the same: electronic signatures are enforceable everywhere in the country.
How Sign Sail satisfies it
Every Sign Sail signature captures the evidence ESIGN cares about: a consent checkbox before signing, the signer's IP address, a UTC timestamp, the user-agent, a SHA-256 hash of the full submission, and a frozen copy of the exact form the signer saw, all bundled into the signed PDF. That bundle is included on every plan, the free one too.
↗ · Common questions
Is a typed name a valid signature under the ESIGN Act?
It can be, if intent and consent are captured and the record is retained. What makes a signature defensible isn't the visual form, it's the evidence around it: who signed, when, what exactly they saw, and whether the record changed since. That's why e-signature tools build audit trails rather than just collecting drawings.
Does the ESIGN Act apply to my waiver or NDA?
Almost certainly yes. The ESIGN exclusions are narrow (wills, family law, court orders, certain notices). Routine business documents like waivers, NDAs, intake forms, and service agreements are squarely covered, which is why they're the most common documents signed electronically.
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See it in a real signature.
Every Sign Sail plan, the free one included, captures this evidence on every signature.