E-signatures · Glossary
What is consent to do business electronically?
It is the signer's agreement to receive records and sign them in electronic form rather than on paper. Most electronic transactions law is built on it, and consumer facing rules in the United States set out exactly what must be disclosed before that consent can be relied on.
It looks like a checkbox nobody reads, and it is the hinge the rest of the statute swings on. When consent is missing or unprovable, the electronic record loses the protection the law was meant to give it.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
5 min read · Published
| Point | United States, consumer records | Australia |
|---|---|---|
| Right to paper | Must be stated, with any fee to obtain it | No prescribed disclosure, but consent must be real |
| Scope of consent | Say whether it covers one transaction or the relationship | Inferred from conduct in commercial dealings |
| Withdrawing consent | Procedure and consequences must be stated | Refusal to continue electronically is preserved |
| Hardware and software | Requirements must be given, and access demonstrated | Not prescribed |
| Record of consent | Needed to rely on the electronic record | Needed as evidence of the recipient's consent |
Two different jobs the word does
Consent appears twice in signing law and the two uses are easy to conflate. The first is consent to the method: the person receiving a signature must accept that it arrives electronically, which is what makes the electronic form effective between the parties. The second is consent to receive records electronically, which protects consumers who might otherwise lose a right to paper notices. Business to business dealings mostly engage the first, and anything customer facing engages both. Designing one consent step that satisfies the stricter reading avoids maintaining two flows.
The demonstration requirement
The unusual part of the United States regime is that consent must be given or confirmed in a way that reasonably demonstrates the consumer can access the records in the format they will be provided. That is why some flows ask a person to click a link, open a sample document or confirm they can read a PDF. It looks like theatre and it is not: the provision exists because a disclosure delivered in a format the recipient cannot open is no disclosure at all. If the format later changes materially, the consent has to be revisited.
Recording it so it can be produced
A consent that cannot be evidenced is worth very little. What needs keeping is the exact wording shown, a version identifier, the time it was accepted and the person who accepted it. Wording changes over time, so a version is what lets you answer which disclosure a customer saw in March two years ago. Storing a boolean flag is the common failure. It records that somebody agreed to something, with no way to say what, which is precisely the question a regulator or a court will ask.
Withdrawal, and what it does not undo
A consumer can generally withdraw consent for future records, and the disclosure has to explain how and at what cost. Withdrawal is prospective: it does not invalidate a contract already signed, and it does not erase the record of what was agreed. What it changes is the delivery obligation from that point, which means the business must be able to switch a customer back to paper without unpicking the past. Systems that treat consent as immutable at signup struggle here. Scope deserves the same care. Consent given for one document is not consent for a relationship, and a business that collects it once at onboarding should say plainly that it covers future records, then honour a withdrawal when it comes. Where the wording changes materially, or the format of the records changes, the safer course is to seek it again rather than to rely on an acceptance of superseded terms, which is exactly the kind of detail a regulator asks to see. Keeping a dated list of the wording versions that have been in use turns that request into a five minute task rather than an excavation.
How the other regimes handle it
Australian and New Zealand law require the consent of the person receiving the signature or the electronic communication, and allow it to be inferred from conduct, with no prescribed disclosure. European law approaches the question through the non discrimination rule and consumer protection instruments rather than a signature specific disclosure. The practical effect is similar: an electronic process the other side clearly accepted is fine, and a process imposed on somebody who asked for paper is not.
Where the consent gate sits in this product
Consent is enforced twice, once in the signing portal where it is a hard gate before any field can be completed, and again in the interface behind it, so a request that skips the screen is refused rather than accepted. The version accepted is stored against the recipient and printed on the certificate of completion beside the signing time and address, which makes it producible years later without going back to the application. It is the same wording for every recipient on an envelope.
Questions people ask
Do business to business contracts need a consent screen?
The consumer disclosure rules do not apply, but the general requirement that the other side accepts electronic form still does. A consent step is the cheapest way to record that acceptance, and it costs the signer one click. Most businesses keep it for every document rather than maintaining two flows.
Can consent be given verbally?
It can be effective in ordinary commercial dealings, and consent can even be inferred from conduct in several jurisdictions. The difficulty is evidential: a phone call leaves nothing to produce. Where consumer rules apply, the disclosure and demonstration requirements make a recorded electronic step effectively necessary.
What if a signer refuses to consent?
Then the document has to be handled on paper, or not at all. Refusal is a legitimate choice that the statutes protect, and a process that has no paper path will occasionally meet somebody who exercises it. Deciding in advance who handles those cases avoids improvising at the counter.
Does consent expire?
Not by itself, though it should be revisited when the wording changes materially or when the format of the records changes. Long lived relationships accumulate consents to superseded disclosures, which is why storing a version identifier matters more than storing a date alone.
Is a checkbox enough?
A checkbox next to clear wording, recorded with its version, satisfies most requirements. What fails is a pre ticked box, a link nobody had to open, or wording buried in terms that were never shown. The test is whether the person could reasonably be said to have agreed to that specific thing.
Where does the consent appear afterwards?
On the certificate of completion, in the signer block, alongside the verification method, the signing time and the address recorded at the time. That places the consent in the same artefact as the rest of the evidence, which is where somebody assessing the signature will look for it.
Make one with e-signatures
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Send a document for signingRelated questions
- What is identity verification in an e-signature request?Identity verification is how a signing process establishes who is signing. The six common methods, what each proves, and the friction each one adds.
- What is the ESIGN Act?The ESIGN Act is the US federal law giving electronic signatures legal effect. Its four conditions, the consumer consent rules, and the documents it excludes.
- Is an electronic signature legally binding?In most countries yes: a signature cannot be denied effect merely because it is electronic. What the statutes require, and the documents still excluded.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .