Please Help!--Electronic Seal program

Hello,
I have been told that electronic seals and signatures are now legal in the state of Missouri. I was also told that there is a way to include the seal in the drawing and when the drawing is altered or changed that the seal is removed automatically. ??
Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks in advance!

 

Are you sending the seal/signatures along with the digital files?
Most of the firms that I know of (Here in VA) only use the electronic
seals/signatures for either PDF's or paper copies. (saves on writers cramp)
If we have to send someone the digital file then those 2 items get stripped
from the file before we send.


Tim w.

state of Missouri. I was also told that there is a way to include the seal
in the drawing and when the drawing is altered or changed that the seal is
removed automatically. ??

 

There is no way to automatically remove the objects that make up the seal
and signature if the drawing is altered. You were misled. However, if you
digitally sign the drawings, if they are altered you can prove it. Note that
digital signing is *not* some sort of visible AutoCAD entity. See AutoCAD's
Help on digital IDs for more info.


--
R. Robert Bell


Hello,
I have been told that electronic seals and signatures are now legal in the
state of Missouri. I was also told that there is a way to include the seal
in the drawing and when the drawing is altered or changed that the seal is
removed automatically. ??
Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks in advance!

 

The electronic seal part is easy. Most of the states where I'm
registered allow the use of computer generated seals. I've drawn each
seal as a block, which gets inserted just like any other block before
the drawing is plotted. If I have to send electronic files to someone
for coordination or for record files I remove the seal and insert text
indicating when the original drawing was sealed and signed, or text
indicating that the drawing is not for construction. Some states have
required text for this.

Electronic signatures are a different matter. It's legal for me to
electronically sign a document in Arizona, but I haven't figured out a
practical way to do it. Just scanning in a signature and inserting it
isn't legal, in my opinion, because there's no way to authenticate that
application of the signature followed the rules. It would be the same
as using a rubber stamp for the signature, and that's not legal anywhere
that I know of. I can sign the electronic file with my digital
certificate, but that doesn't mean much since my deliverables are paper
copies 99.9% of the time. A digital certificate doesn't put any
readable text on a plot, so there no way to know that a drawing has been
digitally signed unless I put in some text that says so, but then
there's no way to verify that that text is valid other than to produce a
copy of the electronic file that's digitally signed. I don't know if
drawings with text that said, "This drawing was signed on ..." would be
accepted by any of the local jurisdictions -- they couldn't easily
verify that the "signature" was valid. Any good CAD operator could
produce a seal for just about any state in less than an hour. Scan in
a signature from a letter... That makes fraud far too easy.

Arizona's Registration Board has issued a policy statement that includes:

Electronic seals and signatures that meet the criteria of Arizona
Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) Title 41 and Title 44 are acceptable for
all professional documents. Security, verification and control of
the signature are the responsibility of the registrant.

Not too helpful. It's legal to use digital signatures, but there's no
guidance on how to do it for paper plots. I'm responsible for
"security, verification, and control". Until there's a clear statement
from the Registration Board on exactly what to do and how to do it
acceptably, I'll continue to have writer's cramp.

Martin