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The primary benefit of the new federal bill appears to be that technology will permit transactions to be processed much faster and thereby cut the costs of doing business via the Internet. When properly implemented, people will be able to use electronic signatures to open stock brokerage accounts, transfer stocks, apply for home mortgage loans or life insurance, buy automobiles, and conduct a myriad of other transactions. It has been predicted that, within five years, as much as 80% of all business transactions will be concluded with the use of e-signatures.

There is no question but that the electronic commerce community is enthusiastic over the new law, but how it is going to be implemented is not at all certain. The Congressional Act that validated e-signatures did not specify how the technology is to be applied in the market place. There is likely to be a proliferation of devices and methodologies developed by upstart as well as well established software and hardware companies that will seek to take advantage of the novelty to market their wares.

Some stores are already using devices that look a little bit like an Etch-A Sketch pad upon which a signature can be placed with a stylus instead of a pen. Such a device, called an ePad, is marketed by Interlink Electronics. But entire different methodologies are likely to be developed. One company, CyberSafe Corporation, has developed a "smart card" encoded with the bearer's confidential and unique information that can then be plugged into a slot or slide attached to specialized computers designed to verify the bearer's identity. Other companies are developing devices along entirely different concepts.

Is the use of e-signatures a safe way of conducting one's personal or business affairs? The proponents of the bill are vocal in arguing that electronic transactions are more secure and less vulnerable to fraud. It is the latter assertion that may give questioned document examiners pause. Will such transactions truly be less susceptible of the types of fraud that forged signatures traditionally have posed to handwriting examiners?

Handwriting examiners seem uncertain of how it will affect their profession. A few expressed the thought that they might never even become involved in such cases because frauds will be more of a computer or software problem rather than presenting classical document comparison issues. Others, convinced they will ultimately become involved in fraud investigations, take a wait-and-see attitude since most problems are likely to be unique to the use of a certain device. Until these devices are widely used, it will probably be impossible to assess the impact they may have on the questioned document examiners' profession. One thing is certain: as with every technological advance, problems will crop up. It is just not known what form the problems will take.

The questioned document profession has already paid attention to incipient problems with e-signatures. At the August, 1999, joint meeting of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE) and the International Association of Forensic Science (IAFS), held at UCLA in Los Angeles, California, a special session was devoted to the problems that e-signatures may present to document examiners. According to Robert J. Muehlberger, then the president of the ASQDE, what was of interest to most would be how soon (not if) and how easily these signatures could be compromised in spite of the security afforded by passwords, pin numbers, encryption, etc. If the technology develops along strictly electronic lines, then the forensic analyst, who might or might not be a questioned document examiner, would have to have or develop an expertise in computers and related software.

What was also interesting to note, Muehlberger said, was that at the Los Angeles e-signatures meeting, one of the speakers, Gerben Wierda of the Netherlands Forensic Institute, mentioned that one sure way of ascertaining that a questioned e-signature purporting to seal a binding contract was legitimate was to subsequently verify the contract with a handwritten signature! Clearly, only future developments will be able to tell us what the true impact of the e-signatures bill will be on the profession of handwriting experts.June 8, 1999