For at least the last decade we have all been signing the delivery man’s handheld device to acknowledge we have received a package. I know the first time I awkwardly scratched out my John Hancock on the screen I was skeptical. Where was my signature going? Could it be used against me? Was this really a safe practice? The only reason I went through with it because the delivery guy was 2 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier then I was. Questioning him on the rules around capturing my signature wasn’t exactly the first thing that came to mind.
Over the next few months I received a few more packages and every time I signed digitally. Nothing bad happened to me and I really wanted my packages, so this sort of just became a habit. Fast forward to 2010 and I probably sign something digitally 4-5 times a week. I literally think nothing of it. In fact when I think of signing paper….I think of some crooked character putting a document on a light table and tracing my signature over like I used to do with my Shazam comics. Stealing my signature from a 128 bit encrypted file seems much more secure to me than a piece of paper floating around.
I think you know where am I going with this? Well our Spira wireless field ticketing application is built for energy services companies to create electronic field tickets that outlines the work they have completed so that they can provide their customers with accurately priced, easy to read field estimates for work performed. Sounds slick. It is. There is a catch. These field tickets need to be signed off on by their customers as proof that the work was done and the totals are reflective of what really happed on location. No signature. No payment. It’s as simple as that. I think you know where I going with this.
There is still reluctance for field consultants to sign field tickets digitally, even if they are provided a nicely formatted easy to read paper receipt. This I don’t understand. Hand tracing a signature versus cracking an encrypted signature file – there is NO comparison on what’s easier to do. Writing paper copies of field tickets is inefficient for the whole industry. Paper takes time, is full or errors, can be hard to decipher, can get lost and is bad for the environment. Technology is something that is supposed to make things easier for people. Technology barriers are being broken down all the time. The digital signature barrier is so year 2000.
Craig Latimer
