FAQ

The Sign.vet e-signature has real legal value.

Indeed, since the law of 13 March 2000, an e-signature has the same legal value as a paper signature, provided it uses “a reliable identification process guaranteeing its link with the act to which it is attached” (which rules out a scanned handwritten signature).

Sign.vet signatures are fully compliant with the EU eIDAS regulation, which sets out a strict legal framework for digital services within the EU.

A Sign.vet e-signature is tamper-proof, unalterable, irrevocable and non-reusable. It also guarantees the integrity and conformity of the document by sealing it at the moment the signer gives consent. That makes it far more secure than a handwritten signature.

YES

Article R242-38 of the French Veterinary Code of Ethics (Code de déontologie vétérinaire) has provided since 16 March 2015 that:

Any certificate or similar document is authenticated by the personal signature and stamp of the veterinarian who issues it or by his or her secure electronic signature.

YES

Prescriptions must comply with both articles R. 5141-111 and R. 5141-112 of the French Public Health Code (Code de la santé publique) and Article 105(5) of European Regulation 2019/6, applicable since 28 January 2022.

This European regulation provides in particular that:

5. A veterinary prescription shall contain at least the following elements:

5. e) the signature or an equivalent electronic form of identification of the veterinarian

YES

According to article R.5141-111:

The prescribing veterinarian shall affix his or her signature immediately below the last line of the prescription or render unusable the space left blank between that last line and his or her signature by any appropriate means.

Sign.vet generates a sealed PDF that cannot be modified, and therefore meets this requirement.

YES, the printed document has the status of a duplicate

You can absolutely print signed documents. This is useful, for example, to give the prescription to the owner so they can keep it displayed at home, or to hand over your behavioural assessment report so they can follow your recommendations.

However, if you print your e-signed document, you then hold a duplicate. This duplicate does not have the same legal value as the electronic file.

The evidence file is a document containing all the steps of the process that led to a successful signature. An evidence file is generated for each signer once a signature is completed. In case of dispute, this document makes it possible to prove the reliability of the e-signatures.

It contains:

• General information about the process: process name, process ID, creation date, sending date and expiry date.
• The signers included in the signature invitation.
• Signer-specific information: last name, first name, e-mail address, phone number, IP address.
• Information about the signer’s authentication: authentication mode, the message sent, and the time of validation.
• The certificate used.
• Data about the signed documents: document name, document ID, document type, fingerprint and consent protocols.

Please note:

• The evidence file is only generated once the signer has signed.
• The evidence file does not contain the signed document, so your confidentiality and professional secrecy are preserved. It can still be formally linked to the document through the document’s fingerprint (hashing technology).

Evidence files are available for 10 years on our website, even if you stop using the service. Unless your company has its own specific internal process, there is no need to download evidence files systematically.

Signing your documents is free and unlimited on our platform https://app.sign.vet: upload the PDF, sign on your phone, then download the signed document.

To sign directly from your practice management software (prescriptions, certificates, consultation documents), you need an annual licence per vet. It allows you to:

• Receive signature requests from your practice management software in the Sign.vet app, with no limit on the number of signatures
• Sign from every software connected to Sign.vet with the same licence

Licences are purchased from your practice management software provider.

You are right to ask. France and the European Union have put very strict regulations in place to protect data, users and organisations.

But this is not the case everywhere: in the United States, the FISA law and the Cloud Act allow US law enforcement and intelligence agencies to obtain from telecom operators and cloud service providers the information stored on their servers, whether that data is located in the US or abroad. So, to protect your data, you should avoid public clouds: data is stored in various countries (such as France, England, the United States, China, etc.), and resources are public, meaning they can be shared between several users. With such vast borders and no oversight of the organisations involved, this model can undermine data security.

At Sign.vet, all our tools are hosted on trusted clouds based in France, not subject to non-European laws: Outscale (Dassault Systèmes), Scaleway and OVH.

These sovereign clouds guarantee compliance with standards, notably the GDPR, which prohibits the transfer of personal data. You can therefore be sure that we comply with the standards in force and protect your sensitive data.

NOTHING, because we don’t even have access to it.

When you sign up, we verify your identity through an automated process. The goal is to make sure that the person trying to register is who they claim to be. This is how we can then attest to the identity of the person who signed.

This verification is entrusted to IDNow, one of Europe’s leading identity verification providers, which checks more than 75 million ID documents a year for banks, insurers and others. IDNow checks your ID document and verifies that your face matches the photo.

IDnow is a certified company, holder of the Security Visa of the ANSSI (the French National Cybersecurity Agency). All communications at IDnow go through encrypted channels. Their data centres are located in the European Union to guarantee a high level of data protection.

IDNow then only tells us the result: OK, the details match, or KO, there is a problem between what you declared and the document (no match, expired document, etc.). As you can see, we never have access to your documents or your photo, only to the result of the check.

NO. Sign.vet is a trusted third party, and trust is the foundation of our relationship. Betraying it would be sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

Our data protection policy is very strict: we use your clients’ e-mail addresses and phone numbers only to have them sign the document you send us. Any other use is prohibited.

After signing, as soon as your software has retrieved them (and after 30 days at most), we erase from our databases the original document, the signed document, the evidence file and the signers’ contact details.

NO. Sign.vet is a trusted third party, and trust is the foundation of our relationship. Betraying it would be sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

At no point are we interested in the content of the documents submitted for signature.

After signing, we erase the original document and the signed document from our databases after 30 days at most. For a signature by a vet, we keep only the document’s digital fingerprint to attest to its authenticity. The digital fingerprint is a computing process (hashing) that creates a unique trace from which the document cannot be reconstructed.

Data security is our top priority. Our service uses advanced encryption and protection technologies to ensure data integrity and confidentiality at all times. After 30 days at most, we delete from our servers everything that has no reason to be archived.

Our goal is to obtain certification from the ANSSI (the French National Cybersecurity Agency) in 2025. Certification attests to the robustness of a product, based on a compliance analysis and penetration tests carried out by a third-party evaluator under the authority of the ANSSI, according to a scheme and a reference framework adapted to users’ security needs and taking technological developments into account.

E-signature undeniably saves paper. However, using IT (server calls, e-mail, SMS…) is not ecologically neutral. We carried out a detailed analysis in a dedicated article.

In short, an e-signature emits 20% less greenhouse gas than a handwritten signature. For the rest, Sign.vet and its providers are committed to fully offsetting the carbon footprint generated by their digital activity.