Overview of Electronic Signing of Documents in SurePath

 The Surety Industry is in the process of adopting digital signing technologies as the preferred method for authenticating and securing electronic documents.  SureForm, the form rendering tool in SurePath, supports two technologies for signing or identifying documents electronically: 

• Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Certificates: are electronic keys which authenticate the owner of the document. PKI certificates are issued by a certifying authority such as IdenTrust (www.identrust.com), or others.
• Bond Validation Number (BVN): This approach is used for identifying bonds. SurePath generates a BVN which the contractor then uses to submit their bid.  This method is often used with products such as Bid Express (www.bidx.com).  This technology allows users with the ID number to access and verify the existence of a bond.

PKI Certificates are widely recognized and accepted throughout the world and are the recommended method for signing and securing bond forms.

PKI Certificates

PKI Certificates offer a higher degree of security since they authenticate the signer(s) of the document.  PKI certificates are very similar to credit cards.  Any user wishing to sign a document must obtain a certificate from a recognized certifying authority.  In the same way that merchants and buyers recognize and trust Visa™ and Mastercard™ as reputable credit card companies, all parties viewing an electronic document must trust the certifying authority.  IVT recommends IdenTrust (www.identrust.com), or a similar certifying authority.  Most certificates are only valid for a certain period of time.  Like credit cards, there are also different types of certificates with differing levels of security requirements and features. You should check with the obligees and Surety companies with whom you do business to find out which certifying authority they will recognize and what type (or class) of certificate they will accept. 

 In the same way that people own several credit cards, users may have several certificates depending upon the parties with whom they do business.  A single bond form may contain certificates from multiple certifying authorities.  The following diagram illustrates how this works:

When the user saves a bond form, SureForm attaches the certificate and information about the certifying authority to the document.  When another user, such as an obligee or underwriter, opens the document, SureForm uses this information to contact the certifying authority over the Internet and validate the certificate.  Any user that modifies and saves the document after it has been signed, will invalidate the signature(s). 

If an obligee or underwriter wishes to view a bond form, they do not need any certificates installed on their machine.  However, they will need the following:

• a web browser that supports digital signatures such as Internet Explorer 4.x and up.
• the latest version of the SureForm viewer.

Using digital signing technology and electronic documents will significantly reduce the cost of processing surety bonds.  The SurePath Network is ready to make these savings a reality.