Electronic Contract

An electronic contract it is any agreement or desire, represented by an Electronic Document, that uses computer technology for its formalization

For the QualiSign Portal, an Electronic Contract is any type of Electronic Document that can be signed (formalized) by two or more parties.

The original files representing the Electronic Contracts signed by the QualiSign Portal can be found in the most diverse known electronic formats, such as: doc, tif, jpg, gif, pdf and others.

The QualiSign Portal allows the keeping of Electronic Contracts and their respective digital and electronic signatures, thus providing a simple and effective workflow and using the Internet as a means to formalize all types of transactions. It ensures the integrity of the contents, in addition to providing confidentiality between the parties.

In short, the QualiSign Portal allows one to:

- Include and manage an Electronic Contract (uploading, indexing, subscription via the QualiSign Portal and storage of electronic content);

- Define the parties that will sign the Electronic Contract;

- Define the people who will sign or simply follow the signature process for each party;

- Define the roles of each of the parties that will sign the Electronic Contract;

- Define the order of signature for the Contracts (workflow);

- Monitor the process to obtain digital and electronic signatures;

- Sign the Electronic Contracts;

- Query and check the digital and electronic signatures of the signed Contracts;

- Manage and inquiry the Electronic Contracts and their respective digital and electronic signatures.

No. When registering the Electronic Contract, users define whether or not it should be stored by the QualiSign Portal.

The QualiSign Portal offers features for authentication and verification of Electronic Contracts, even if they are not stored in the Portal.

No. For reasons of security and guarantee of integrity and confidentiality, the Electronic Contract always remains stored at the QualiSign Portal, servers, with no need to submit it for subscriptions, that is, it is never sent, by email or any other otherwise, to its signatories.

In addition to the QualiSign Portal providing security guarantees, it also guarantees the integrity and confidentiality of information to the Electronic Contracts stored there.

The QualiSign Portal also guarantees that the Electronic Contract can only be accessed by people authorized by its creator.

As an additional security guarantee, the Electronic Contract is encrypted and stored in secure databases, never being sent by e-mails or other electronic means.

When stored at the QualiSign Portal servers, the electronic document can be accessed and viewed over the Internet, through a secure (encrypted) connection.

For an Electronic Contract to be signed through the QualiSign Portal, it does not have to be stored (uploaded) at the Portal. Just register it at the QualiSign Portal.

Therefore, to sign an Electronic Contract that is not stored at the QualiSign Portal servers, the following conditions must be met:

- The Electronic Contract must have been previously registered at the QualiSign Portal;;

- The user must hold the original Electronic Contract;

- The user must be authorized to sign the Electronic Contract.

Yes. At the QualiSign Portal, Electronic Contracts can be signed individually or in batches (multiple files at once).

Yes. The QualiSign Portal complies with the provisions of Circular Letter 3,234, published by the Central Bank of Brazil on April 15, 2004, which changes the exchange regulations to provide for the digital signature in foreign exchange contracts through the use of digital certificates issued within the scope of the Public Key Infrastructure (ICP-Brasil).

The QualiSign Portal is also in compliance with the rules established by BACEN through Circular Letter 3,520 of 8/29/2011,, which alters the procedures to be adopted in the digital signature of foreign exchange contracts and, consequently, complies with the MARKET REGULATION FOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE AND INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL (RMCCI).

The QualiSign Portal sends notifications, via digitally signed email, to each person associated with the Electronic Document, informing the availability of the document for viewing and signing, if applicable.

Users can also query the documents that depend on their signature after having signed in to the QualiSign Portal.

By definition, at the QualiSign Portal, any Electronic Document that needs to be signed by two or more parties is considered an Electronic Contract. For the QualiSign Portal an Electronic Document that does not need to be digitally signed is considered a Digital Archive.

When registering the Electronic Document, users can define whether or not it should be signed

The QualiSign Portal allows anyone who can sign or who has signed an Electronic Contract to make a copy of the document with its respective signatures.

The signed document, contained in a file in .P7s format, contains all digital signatures placed on the electronic document, the respective digital certificates used for the signatures, the original electronic document (if it was stored by the QualiSign Portal) and the time stamps (in case this option has been made by the user).

This electronic file contains all the evidence that the electronic document was signed by the parties and can be checked at any time through the QualiSign Portal or other software available at the market, with an ITI compliance checker.

Any Electronic Contracts stored on the QualiSign Portal may optionally include a digital or electronic signature and a time stamp.

The attributes of the QualiSign Portal's digital and electronic signature and the time stamp, if any, are made available to users so that they can see evidence of the authenticity and integrity of their Electronic Contracts.

The attributes of the QualiSign Portal include information demonstrating that:

- The content of the Electronic Contract has not been modified in any way since its signature;

- The QualiSign Portal signature has not been modified or tampered with since it was generated;

- The certificate used to sign the Electronic Contract was not expired upon the document signature;

- The QualiSign Portal, time stamp, if any, records the moment of the event (date and time) when the subscription was made;

- The time stamp has not been modified or tampered with.

- Management of Electronic Contracts, with submission of notifications and notices of expirations, signatures and others;

- The Electronic Contract registered at the QualiSign Portal is stored at a secure website on the Internet, remaining at the disposal of its users throughout its validity period or contracted period of time;

- Reduced operating costs resulting from the elimination of paper documents, as:

- It is not necessary to collect paper signatures;

- It does not require manual verification of signatures, which in addition to taking time, requires specific labor;

- There is no need for authenticating signatures in notary offices;

- It eliminates the need for certified copies to be delivered to the attorneys-in-fact or third parties with whom they deal with;

- It eliminates the need for Electronic Document Management (GED or EDM) resources, as there is no paper to scan;

- It eliminates the need to store physical documents (paper), as they do not exist.

The fact that electronic information can be easily changed makes it necessary to have a system in which the parties trust the information that is shared and used in daily transactions.

This requirement for trust is known as Non-Repudiation in the legal and crypto-technical worlds.

Non-repudiation repudiation is important in electronic commerce to prevent the parties to a transaction from contesting or declining a transaction, once it has been completed. The first objective of a Non-Repudiation system is to prove WHO has done WHAT and WHERE, and to maintain the necessary evidence of such information so as to settle any disputes or audits.

Non-repudiation must be viewed from a legal and technical perspective. From a legal perspective, Non-Repudiation is defined by the American Bar Association PKI Assessment Guidelines as "... sufficient evidence to persuade legal authority (judge, juror or arbitrator) regarding its origin, submission, surrender and integrity, despite the attempted denial by the alleged uploader."

Generally speaking, to repudiate something means to deny its existence and, for this purpose, Non-Repudiation services use encryption methods that prevent an individual or an entity from denying the execution of a particular action related to the data (such as mechanisms for non-rejection of authority, providing proof of origin, intended for the proof of obligation, intention, or commitment; or for proof of possession).

From a technical perspective, the term Non-Repudiation is used within authentication technology to describe a service that "... provides proof of the integrity and origin of the data, both through a relationship that is not capable of being forged and that can be checked by any interested third parties, at any time; or ... [provides] a high guarantee ... "[that this data is] genuine, and cannot be subsequently turned down. (W. Caelli, D. Longley, and M. Shain, 1991. Information Security Handbook. London: Macmillan)

Time Stamping services add up an aspect that Non-Repudiation services do not provide: "... a strong and verifiable cryptographic indication that specific digital information existed at a specific moment in time. Recording the moment when digital information was generated provides stakeholders with a verifiable indication of when digital information came into existence (WHEN). The time stamp of digitally signed information can provide stakeholders with verifiable information that digital information has been signed when the certificate used to sign it was valid, that is, that the signature was generated before the expiration date of the certificate used to do the signing."

The Time Registration services thus provide the technical basis for general Non-Repudiation, services, both within the scope of the law and within the scope of notary services (p.182 ABA PKI Assessment Guidelines).

At the QualiSign Portal, by digitally signing the documents (with digital certificate), it guarantees the Non-Repudiation of the documents registered therein, maintaining the necessary evidence of such information to resolve any disputes or audits.