What is an electronic signature?

A contract that waits three days for a courier to bring it back signed is an anachronism with a legal remedy that has existed for years — but the phrase ‘electronic signature’ conceals a distinction many companies discover late: it is not one thing, it is three tiers of very different weight, defined across the EU by the eIDAS regulation. The simple electronic signature covers the click-to-accept box, the finger-drawn scrawl and platform approvals; valid for a great many everyday commercial dealings, yet weak in a dispute, because somebody still has to prove who actually pressed the button. The advanced signature is cryptographically bound to both signatory and document, so any later alteration becomes visible, with reasonable identification of the person behind it. The qualified signature sits at the top: created with a certified device and a certificate from an accredited trust service provider — in Romania, names such as certSIGN, DigiSign and Trans Sped, all listed in the national and European trust registers — and it is the only tier automatically equivalent to ink across the Union. It is also, practically speaking, the key to dealing with the Romanian state: filings to ANAF, the Romanian tax authority, through SPV, its online taxpayer portal, tenders on the public procurement platform, and official declarations. The rule that saves both money and risk is allocation written down in advance: qualified where law or stakes demand it, advanced or simple for the daily commercial flow.