Electronic signing consent

What it says

I agree to sign electronically, and that my electronic signature is as binding as a handwritten one. It sits in the bar fixed to the bottom of the signing view, beside the running status line and the Finish signing button, so it is never scrolled past or hidden behind a fold. It is unticked when the page loads and stays that way until the signer deliberately ticks it.

It cannot be skipped

Pressing Finish signing without it shows the reason rather than silently failing. That check is repeated when the submission reaches the server, which refuses it outright if the consent flag is not present. A consent gate that only exists in the browser is not a gate, so it exists in both places, and the server one is the one that counts.

The wording is versioned

The consent carries a version string, set on the deployment rather than per envelope. It is included in the challenge payload before signing and again with the document, so the version the signer was shown is the version that travels with the submission. When the wording changes, older signatures keep the version they actually agreed to instead of retroactively appearing to have agreed to something new.

What is stored per signer

Three things go onto that recipient's row at the moment of submission: the timestamp when consent was accepted, the version string, and, separately, the hash of the document as it stood at that instant. The consent version also lands in the metadata of the signed event in the audit trail, so it appears in two independent places rather than one.

Where it shows up afterwards

The certificate of completion gives each signer their own block, and one of its rows reads Consent accepted, followed by the exact timestamp in UTC and the version in brackets. That is the line worth pointing at if anybody ever asks whether the person understood they were signing rather than filling in a form, because it names the moment and the wording together.

How it works, in three steps

1. Step 1

   The signer opens the document

   The consent line is already in the bottom bar, unticked, next to the status telling them what is still outstanding.

2. Step 2

   They tick it before finishing

   Pressing Finish signing without it names the missing consent rather than failing quietly.

3. Step 3

   It is recorded with the signature

   Timestamp and version go onto the record and onto the certificate, alongside the hash of the document at that moment.

Limits worth knowing

• The wording is fixed. You cannot substitute your own consent text per envelope or per signer.
• There is no opt out. A signer who will not tick it cannot complete the signing.
• The version comes from the deployment, so every envelope signed on a given day carries the same one.
• Consent is recorded at submission. There is no separate earlier step for it.

Questions people ask

Related pages