Gov. Jerry Brown has signed Assemblymember Evan Low’s AB 2296, which its backers say should make it easier for the state government to use digital signature technology.
The bill intends to clarify the difference between digital signatures and electronic signatures in California's government code. Currently the state defines a digital signature as an "electronic identifier, created by computer, intended by the party using it to have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature."
But two laws enacted in the 1990s confused the issue for state agencies and departments.
In 1995 the state of California added Code Section 16.5 so that "the use of a digital signature shall have the same force and effect as the use of a manual signature" — what people often call a "wet" signature. Meanwhile, four years later in 1999, California enacted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), which most states adopted to make records laws the same from state to state. However UETA pertains only to e-signatures, not digital signatures.
AB 2296 marries those two standards, finding "a 'digital signature' authorized by Section 16.5 of the Government Code and subject to regulations adopted by the Secretary of State is one type of 'electronic signature' that a public agency may choose to adopt under the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act."
Read more about AB 2296 on Techwire.
