Electronic signatures, under South African law.

Yes. The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002 gives data messages and electronic signatures legal recognition. Where the law requires a signature and does not specify how it must be made, an ordinary electronic signature satisfies that requirement.

The ECT Act excludes a short list. The one most businesses meet is the sale or transfer of immovable property - a deed of sale for land or a mortgage bond still needs ink. Wills and certain bills of exchange are also excluded. Ordinary commercial paperwork is not.

An advanced electronic signature is one accredited under section 37 of the Act by the South African Accreditation Authority, and only a small number of providers hold that accreditation. A handful of specific statutes require one. Everything else - service agreements, NDAs, employment contracts, leases, engagement letters, purchase orders - is satisfied by an ordinary electronic signature.

No. Lucid Signing produces ordinary electronic signatures with a tamper-evident audit trail, which is what the overwhelming majority of South African agreements need. If a specific statute obliges you to use an accredited advanced electronic signature, you need an accredited provider, and we would rather tell you that here than after you have paid us.

Not the image of the signature - the record around it. Who opened the document, from which IP address and device, when, in what order, and whether the file changed afterwards. That evidence is what a court weighs, and it is what the audit trail exists to produce.