Why You Need Privacy-First eSignatures in HR

If you’re in HR, you likely deal with lots of paperwork. And by definition, you deal with many people, many of whom have to sign the documents you create. Especially with more flexible working locations, making the move to eSignatures can significantly speed up your hiring process – but there is a catch with most providers. 

HR is one of the functions that most benefits from moving to eSignatures – particularly in a hybrid- or even remote-first work environment. But with many documents containing sensitive data by nature, it’s of the utmost importance to ensure privacy by using a privacy-first eSignature provider. 

But just because there are so many documents to be signed, many of which are private by nature, moving to the right eSignature solution is a logical step to take that benefits both parties. 

Here’s How eSignatures Help You Digitize HR 

For many people, a signed work contract is one of the most sensitive documents they own. It contains specifics about their role, including salary and benefits, and is therefore mostly kept confidential. Wet signatures and hardcopies have prevailed for decades in HR, leaving both parties with something to hold on to, to store, and value. 

But in a world where in-person meetings become more and more limited, and employees might actually work halfway around the world from headquarters, the benefits of eSignatures start to weigh in more heavily. And even if the future employee lives close to and is going to work in your company’s headquarters – chances are you in the HR function are working from home at times, or even fully remote. 

And even though there’s often still a hard copy of a signed work contract, the chances are that either the employee or the business – or both – end up scanning the document to store a digital copy, simply for convenience. This makes the printing part a funny detour: The document is written digitally, then printed and signed in multiple copies, and then scanned again to be stored digitally. 

By moving away from wet signatures and adopting a fully digital eSignature process, you therefore simply cut out a cumbersome step in the middle and stay digital from A to Z. And the benefits are rather obvious: 

• Not only can work contracts be sent for approval and changes made without having to re-print anything but once final a signature can be obtained in minutes.
• It does not matter where the employee is located: As long as they have a device with access to the internet, they can sign the contract you’re sending them. 
• And what if they take their sweet time? Instead of calling them up or – worse – simply waiting for them to return a signed copy via snail mail, you can actively monitor the status and see whether they’ve opened and looked at the document yet. 
• As an added benefit, you save time and money and help preserve the environment: No more time wasted printing multiple copies with potentially dozens of pages each, putting them into an envelope, and paying to mail them to your employee. No more wasting paper for a document that ends up in digital format anyways.

Legally valid eSignatures for any kind of HR documents in minutes – from your computer to theirs, with no detour or wait times. The benefits of eSignatures are obvious. 

But there’s a catch that many of the large eSignature providers fail to address properly: Privacy. 

Here’s Why You Need Privacy-First eSignatures in HR

The most convenient process in the world becomes useless if it jeopardizes the content of the document sent. And if you’re not using a privacy-first eSignature provider, chances are your documents can be read by anyone. 

Privacy matters. Here’s a list of things to look out for when choosing your eSignature provider. 

Privacy-first eSignature providers	What that means for you
Do offer proper encryption	Your documents are safe from prying eyes
Do protect your documents no matter where	You don’t have to worry about insecure access to the internet
Do comply with the law but don’t reveal your documents	You work with a trustworthy provider, but don’t risk anyone reading your documents
Do maintain privacy even when breached	You don’t have to worry about any hacks or attacks
Don’t make you use no-sign lists	One provider to send all documents – no issues of trust
Don’t ask for any privileges	Nobody has the right to read your documents
Don’t have any backdoor access	Access is restricted to your and your recipient
Don’t offer smart document tools	No AI algorithm is learning from your documents

See any warning signs about your current provider yet? Let’s dive in and see what each one means.

Do: Offer proper encryption

Unfortunately, not all encryption is created equal. While certainly great for marketing, most types of encryption are insufficient for today’s compromised digital world. Server-side encryption, symmetric encryption where you’re asked to send the key along with the documents, or – worst of all – no encryption at all: None of these keep your data safe. Only asymmetric, full end-to-end encryption makes it impossible for anyone to intercept and decipher your documents. 

Two parties need access to your documents: Yourself and the employee in question. Being of a sensitive nature, risking exposure to any other party by choosing insufficient encryption is a risk simply not worth taking.

Do: Protect your documents no matter where

The internet is complex – and highly insecure. Your documents travel across many hops before actually reaching the destination, and each one of them presents a security risk if your data is not encrypted properly. Your work or home WiFi can be intercepted. The owner of the coffee shop you’re working in can monitor all traffic on their WiFi. While abroad, the public WiFi you’re using is subject to questionable privacy laws. There are dozens of scenarios where someone with sufficient knowledge can intercept your data.

The only way to ensure privacy no matter where is by using proper encryption. With flexible work locations for both parties, you’ll never be able to control the environment to the degree necessary to exclude any risk. The good news is that, with asymmetric end-to-end encryption, you don’t have to.

Do: Comply with the law – without compromising your data

Many governments have extensive powers when it comes to requesting digital data from service providers. That could be your internet service provider (ISP) or your eSignature provider. And it does not stop with your own government: Internationally, there is a web of alliances and agreements in place that means your data could end up in any “friendly” governments’ hands. Especially the United States, with laws like the CLOUD Act, are aggressively pursuing digital data sharing with allies. 

You want your provider to comply with the law – but not reveal your sensitive data. The only way to walk that fine line between legal compliance and a complete breach of privacy is to use proper encryption: All documents can be handed over if legally required, but the contents of said documents remain private and confidential.

Do: Ensure data privacy even in case of security breach

A security breach is not a question of “if,” but rather “when.” No matter how well-designed your eSignature provider’s security features, nobody is completely safe from hacks. As digital defense mechanisms get more elaborate, so get the attack methods. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that simply cannot be won. And the bigger the provider, the juicier a target they present for any attack. 

Assume your data is out there – somewhere. Thousands of businesses have suddenly found what’s called “dumps” of their confidential data on some public server somewhere, plain for anyone to see. Or worse – they were asked to pay hefty ransom in order to prevent just that from happening. No matter what: Encrypted documents are worthless to any hacker.

Don’t: Make you use no-sign lists

The use of “no-sign lists” is a clear sign of a lack of trust. In case you’ve never seen one: Many businesses limit the type of document employees are allowed to sign (or have signed) digitally. These lists are called “no-sign lists” and fundamentally attest to the fact that your employer does not trust the eSignature provider they’re using. Ordering a new coffee machine is ok – but sending any confidential contract is not. 

Trust is binary: It’s either there or it’s not. If there is even the slightest doubt about your eSignature provider’s capacity to maintain your privacy, you’ve got a problem. You should be sending no documents at all – or (given the right choice of provider), all of them, without having to worry at all. Because asymmetric end-to-end encryption works.

Don’t: Ask for any kind of privilege

Newsflash: The “rule of least privilege” is not a good thing. Even though the idea behind it is good – limiting access to your documents to roles that strictly require it, rather than allowing access to anyone – it’s fundamentally flawed. Ask yourself: Why would anyone – no matter what role or title they hold – need access to your documents in the first place? 

Admin, Superadmin, or CEO – nobody should have the privilege to read your documents. If you spot any mention of that rule in the fine print of your eSignature providers’ legal agreement, you should run away – fast. Because not only do you have zero control over who ends up having access, it also means there is access to be had. See next point.

Don’t: Keep backdoor access to your data

Often, eSignature providers keep a backdoor open to circumvent your encryption. This is sometimes even sold as a benefit: It helps intervene in an emergency or helps maintain security levels. But the fact remains: There is access to be had, in a place where people work. And where people work, mistakes happen. 

Nobody but you and your recipient should have access to your unencrypted documents. That’s literally the definition of privacy: Keeping the content of those documents away from prying eyes, no matter their excuse or reason. If you as much as even suspect that there’s a backdoor way to access your data, you should start looking around for another provider.

Don’t: Provide smart document management tools

Smart tools can only be smart if they can read your documents. You’ve likely seen the marketing slogans: “Life-cycle management and analytics” or “Proposal management software.” They sound great and undoubtedly provide some kind of value if used correctly. But driven by artificial intelligence, these tools, by definition, need unencrypted access to your data in order to do their job – make sense out of what you’re doing and help you improve your workflow or process. 

A small gain in efficiency is not worth the large sacrifice of privacy. If AI can access your documents, so can the people who developed those algorithms. Somewhere, there are now unencrypted copies of your documents being analyzed and worked on. That’s not something you can risk – ever.

The Bottom Line

Picture this: One day, you wake up to an email from a furious employee telling you that they found their entire work contract in a data dump on some shady website. With all the glorious details, plain for anyone to read. 

That’s a worst-case scenario, and frankly, unlikely to happen. But it can happen. It has happened to others and will happen to more businesses as hacking methods become more elaborate and digital personal information becomes the new currency to be traded online. 

Working in HR, with real people who trust you with some of their most sensitive information, you cannot risk even the slightest chance of a data breach. But at the same time, the workload is not decreasing but rather increasing for many of us, and hybrid work models or even fully remote companies make using old-school paper signatures cumbersome, if not downright impossible. 

Luckily, there is a solution: Proper encryption. By using an eSignature provider that offers asymmetric, end-to-end encryption, all documents are encrypted locally on your machine and never float around the internet unencrypted. Asymmetric means that there’s a different key to decrypt them, used by your employee or other signatory – so even if someone manages to gain access to your encryption key, they could not decrypt the documents you’ve sent. 

The world is complex enough without having to worry about the security of each and every document you send for signature. Do yourself a favor – pick the right provider, stop worrying and focus on what you do best.