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Electronic and Digital Signatures
Policy Statement
The Pierce County Library System encourages electronic transactions and the use of electronic signatures and recognizes electronic signatures as legally binding and equivalent in force and effect as a handwritten signature.
To authorize the use of electronic signatures to promote efficiency in the conduct of Library business and other transactions and provide reasonable assurance of the integrity, authenticity, and nonrepudiation of electronic documents when signed with electronic signatures.
Definitions
Signature: The recorded acknowledgment by an authorized person for the authenticity to the content or provisions contained therein to the instrument being signed.
Electronic Signature: An electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.
Digital Signature: One type of electronic signature that contains a digital certificate, issued by a licensed certification authority behind the signature or offers authentication when sending a signed electronic document.
Handwritten or Wet Signature: A signature created when a person physically marks a document with the intent to sign the record.
Facsimile Signature: A reproduction of a handwritten signature that has been saved electronically or by engraving, imprinting, or stamping.
Authorized Signer: Library Trustees, Executive Director, Deputy Director, Department Heads, and other Library employees or persons authorized to act on the behalf of the Library, to use, create, and/or accept signatures.
Digital Record: Information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form, except as otherwise defined for the purpose of state or local agency record retention, preservation, or disclosure.
Policy
A digital, electronic, or facsimile signature is an authorized substitute for a handwritten signature unless required by law to be signed in non-electronic media.
Anyone applying an electronic signature shall use their own name.
Authorized signers may use, create, or accept records with electronic signatures.
Authorized signers may appoint a designee to sign documents on their behalf. The designee must use their own electronic signature.
This policy does not preclude the use of handwritten signatures.
If notarization is required for a document, the electronic signature of a notary public satisfies that requirement.
Electronic signatures may be affixed to digital records including, but not limited to:
- Resolutions adopted by the Board of Trustees
- Minutes of Board of Trustee meetings
- Claim vouchers approved by the Executive Director or Trustees
- Invoices approved for payment
- Human Resource forms and documents
- Contracts, agreements, and other forms to which the Library is a party
- Property transactions
The Library’s Executive Director is responsible for the administration of this policy and will establish administrative policies or processes necessary to implement the use of electronic signatures consistent with this policy and in compliance with provisions of the Washington Uniform Electronic Transaction Act and the Electronic Signatures in Global and Electronic Commerce Act.
Adopted by the Pierce County Rural Library District Board of Trustees, May 12, 2021.
