A Digital Signature Certificate is a safe and protected digital key that is issued by the certifying authorities to authenticate and declare the identity of the person holding this certificate. Digital Signatures utilize the public key encryptions to create the signatures.

A digital signature certificate (DSC) contains information about the user’s name, pin code, country, email address, date of issuance of certificate and name of the certifying authority.

Benefits of digital signature certificate

Digital Signature Certificates have various benefits and are also helpful in authenticating the personal information details of the individual holder while conducting online businesses. Some of the benefits are listed below:

Cost and time reduction: Instead of signing the hard copy documents physically and then scanning them to send it further via e-mail would take a lot of time, users could save their valuable time by digitally signing the PDF files and send them much more quickly and authenticate their services through digital signatures. 

The Digital Signature certificate holder does not need to be physically present to conduct or authorize a business, his digital signature is enough to authorize the same, saving him valuable time to do other stuff as well.

Data integrity: Documents that are signed digitally are safe from alterations and editing after signing, which makes the authorized data safe and secure.

The government agencies often ask for these certificates to cross-check and verify the business transaction.

Authenticity of documents: Digitally signed documents give confidence to the receiver to be assured of the signer’s authenticity. They could easily take actions based on such documents without getting worried about the documents being manipulated.

Verifying Establishments for Digital Signature Certificate

The Supervisor of Verifying Establishment to dispense digital signatures in India has official eMudhra as one of their certifying authorities for issuance of Digital Signature Certificates to individuals and entities.

Other certifying authorities might also include (n) Code Solutions, National Informatics Centre, Safescrypt and Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology as certifying authorities for dispensing digital signatures.

Satisfying statutory agreements

Individuals and other entities that are required to get their accounts audited have to file their income tax return mandatorily utilizing a digital signature. Moreover, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has made it obligatory for the industries to file all reports, applications, and forms via digital signature only.

Under GST also, a company could get registered only by authenticating the GST application through the digital signature from their authorities. The use of a digital signature is essential even for filing all applications, amendments and other related forms in the industry.