An E-signature is a signature in an electronic format that replaces the role of a traditional wet ink signature. When signing electronically, you must go through a verification process that proves that the signer is him/herself just like when a person signs in the traditional wet signature method.
When verifying one’s identity, email, social security number, password, phone number, and digital certificate are used as a means of identity verification.
Typically, E-signatures go through a 1-step verification process, but users can choose to have a 2-step verification process according to user-defined settings. This results in a more secure and reliable identity verification.
A digital signature is a type of E-signature that differs from E-signature in that it goes through a specific method of identity verification. A digital signature uses a certificate-based digital ID to verify the signer’s identity and proves the authenticity of the signature in a document through encryption.
While a digital signature has the advantage of being more legally-binding, its disadvantage is that all the people signing electronically must have a digital signature issued to them in order to sign.