the one benefit i see is as a final “lock in your answer” function for any form you’re submitting.
And did they have to stop allowing written signatures because of AI scraping? Or is it just because they never looked legible at all?
the one benefit i see is as a final “lock in your answer” function for any form you’re submitting.
And did they have to stop allowing written signatures because of AI scraping? Or is it just because they never looked legible at all?
Signatures have never required cursive. Historically, people who couldn’t read or write would just put an X in the signature spot and that was valid. Yeah, there is a marginal benefit to physically signing something in cursive, but the purpose of signing it has always been more of a final agreement step.
If handwriting and spelling and how I signed it actually mattered at all legally, then I could sign a different name when I buy a car, get keys, drive away, and later in court, say “well I never agreed to pay for this car, look at my signature, it says Frank Sinatra”. Same goes for a true forgery. The evidence I didn’t sign it myself is my statement in court saying “I didn’t sign this”, and whatever signs there are that I didn’t benefit from this.
Where I come from the X thing wouldn’t be legally binding. What people who couldn’t read or write would do is using their fingerprints. They would put their finger on a stamp ink pad and then stamp the paper with their finger. That’s why we say “someone who uses their fingerprint” as a euphemism for “illiterate”.
That’s really interesting and a great way to do that, honestly. A singular fingerprint also makes more sense than needing handwriting analysis to detect a forgery, too. Kinda feel that should be the norm everywhere, honestly, a signing and a print next to it to verify against if the need arises.
So your last paragraph is a bit off. One it was generally checked with your id that the names were the same. I often had to sign a non typical signature because of a place that required the full name. then also signing someone elses name on a document would be something they can go after you for. Im not sure which all laws but you can’t pretend to be someone you are not with contracts and agreements and such.
I was still speaking historically, so I meant before easy checks like your ID were in place. Its definitely harder to do that, nowadays. But of course they can go after you for it, that’s my point. You’ve agreed to a contract by the act of signing anything. If I forge a name of a nonexistent person, they can still go after me as if I’d signed it normally, because the act of signing at all is what binds me, not what I actually sign. I held the pen, I agreed to the contract. It would be ridiculous to escape legal consequences by doing things like signing differently, and in this area of law, at least in the US, common sense prevailed and I’ll be liable for whatever I willingly signed, whether that’s my name, an X, a fingerprint, a fake name, or anything else.