Many of you have asked us for it. Today, we are happy to announce it.

Over the past few months, we have worked hard to develop our signature module to better meet your needs and expectations.

As you suggested, we have included the option to use PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificates in our new version. This means that you now have the choice of certifying your signatures with either the Secure Exchanges signing certificate or the PKI digital signature certificate .

Both certificates have the same objective: to certify the authenticity, integrity and unaltered status of your documents, while guaranteeing their confidentiality .

They have the same role, so what is the difference between the Secure Exchange signing certificate and the PKI certificate?

1. The Secure Exchanges signing certificate is an additional page added to your document. It certifies the document's authenticity, the identity of the signatories, and its digital fingerprint. This certificate guarantees integrity without ever accessing the document's content. It relies on the file's digital fingerprint and the signatories' IP addresses. Your document therefore remains 100% confidential , is never read by our servers, and is never stored there.
   

Depending on your preferences, you can choose not to include the Secure Exchanges signing certificate page in your document. Its authenticity can still be verified as described in this article.

1. The PKI digital signature certificate , on the other hand, is a digital certificate : no additional pages are added to the document. It also certifies the authenticity and identity of the signatories. Unlike the Secure Exchanges certificate, the PKI certificate requires access to the signed document in order to certify it. All PKI certificates are embedded in PDF format and recognized by a trusted authority.
   

What are the implications of introducing the PKI certificate at Secure Exchanges?

The introduction of the PKI certificate requires a small adjustment to our process. As explained above, the Secure Exchanges signing certificate does not require any access to the document, which is central to our mission: ensuring confidentiality.

Our team therefore integrated PKI technology without us being able to access the content of the documents.

As you know, when communicating via Secure Exchanges, your emails are encrypted end-to-end using a key pair (one public and one private). Neither the Secure Exchanges team nor servers have access to your data.

However, when you choose to use a PKI digital signature certificate (based solely on public-key encryption), we have had to integrate an intermediate step where the document temporarily passes through our servers to affix the PKI certificate . However, the document is never stored or accessible to our team .

So what changes can be expected?

Our new update includes features that offer you more comfort and options when signing your documents.

You will now see new options appear on the signature interface:

• How to add a new signer without leaving the signature area definition interface; How do I add a new signer to my document without leaving the signature area definition interface?

• Assigning certain signature areas to another signatory or modifying the distribution of areas; How to assign signature areas to another signatory without having to delete and redefine them?

• Save your signature templates for reuse; How can I save a signature template?

• Check a box to exclude the Secure Exchanges certificate page (useful for organizations that refuse this type of document); Is it possible to choose the type of certificate I want to assign to my document when signing it?

• Check a box to use PKI digital signature certificates ;

• Click a button to use the predefined fields in your PDF file if needed. Is it possible to use the predefined fields in my PDF document to define signature areas?