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?
I was at a grocery store back when you had to sign the little digital screen for a card transaction and I finished signing, but the cashier got distracted and didn’t accept the signature for a while, so I just doodled Godzilla taking a skyscraper next to my name.
My best friend was there with me and from that day forward, I’m not sure if he’s ever signed something without adding a Batman logo after that day.
Signatures are arbitrary.
Signature matching/analysis isn’t particularly scientific, so in general a physical signature is used for clear authorization, not identification. When you log in to something to sign your identity is already set by other means, so all the signature needs to do is say “yes, I agree to this”. E signatures in the US were legally formalized awhile ago, so it’s not really a controversy.
I think a digital signature is also a way they can prosecute for impersonating someone for identity theft. By you typing and saying “this is me” if it’s not, they can use that as evidence.
physical signatures are just asking you to write your name in a box…
Not a huge difference.
No I disagree, the idea with physical signatures is that you write it in cursive, so in theory nobody will do ot exactly the same way as you write it - but then people can forge things, and since people don’t actually write their name the exact same way every time, forgery is essentially as good as perfect.
Edit to fix typo and add italics.
Nobody has relied only on signatures to verify that a person signed it, since forever. Especially because forgery was always a thing.
This is why documents that are important aren’t just signed by one person; they’re signed by witnesses who presumably will vouch for it. (Like notary public’s are a thing.)
For lesser contracts they first verify you are in fact you.
There’s no functional difference online- to within a reasonable standard.
You might disagree, but that doesn’t mean you’re right. A signature does not require cursive. It doesn’t even have to be legible. It’s a mark that you make signifying that you agree to whatever it is you’re signing.
https://thelegalguide.org/understanding-signatures-legal-definitions-validity/
Could be a jurisdiction thing. Non-cursive signatures* get rejected in my country if the recipient bothers to check.
( * If written in the Latin alphabet.)
In parts of the world, paperwork is managed with stamps and a mark. Your doctor in latin america will stamp a blank prescription pad with a stamp that has their name and license number. They will then make a recognizable mark over the stamp. Same with your lawyer and all government offices. The point isn’t that someone can use handwriting analysis - which is just fluff - and rather that they possess the stamp and those who would read the paperwork recognize their particular mark.
And, most young adults don’t sign in cursive anymore, so, aside from terrible handwriting, their printed name isn’t really much different than a typed name.
most young adults don’t sign in cursive anymore
That seems like a terrible idea. I’m disappointed in humans yet again.
How’s your cuneiform? Do you know how to use a quill pen? Do you know how to bleach a peace of expensive parchment so that it can be reused?
Why? Everyone’s handwriting is different and unique whether it’s cursive or regular script.
Meh. After hearing years of complaints from old people about how terrible young people are, and working with a lot of young people who are objectively much better people than the old ones that complain about them, I always try to stop to think about why traditions are valuable.
Does writing your words with extra loopy bits that are less legible than print REALLY make you a better person?
Not learning cursive is like not learning Latin. Maybe it was useful at some point, but the only reason to push for it now, is because “That’s how I did it, so it must be the best way, and everyone else is wrong!”
I think there’s validity in learning/teaching cursive, if you’re proficient it’s a much faster way of writing. Handwritten notetaking has been shown to be more effective than digital in terms of concept retention (you’re not just regurgitating content verbatim), and cursive can facilitate better notetaking. I’d argue its setting students up for better outcomes in secondary and post-secondary institutions.
Regardless of that I do agree with your view, we should not just continue things for the sake of tradition, young people aren’t “terrible” for forsaking certain traditions. If anything, re-evaluating what we hold as important is a useful exercise, especially when it comes to education.
not learning cursive is like not learning Latin
I think both are still useful today, cursive less so. But sure, they’re not indicative of superior moral fibre, which is presumably why you prefer young people to old people.
To put a finer point on it, it’s not even just “moral fibre”. Sure, higher societal morality is something we should all strive for, but I’m not even asking for that much.
It’s the morally neutral bullshit like handwriting, or reading a novel on your phone instead of on paper, or spending your free time playing video games or watching YouTube/Twitch as opposed to watching Network television. There’s no reason to raise a fuss or dub others inferior for doing things a little different.
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.
“in cursive”
Laughs in years of deviating but programmed hand movements from which letters are rarely decipherable…
It does as much as does “testifying under oath” does to magically stop you from lying.
i.e., putting your hand on a significant bit of text and saying some special words doesn’t stop you from lying, but it DOES create / enhance penalties if you do.
I think that’s probably it, or pure cargo cult because “we’ve always had signatures so something’s got to go in that slot”. The whole idea of random scrawls for “authentication” has been weird all along. As if everyone walked around knowing what everyone’s signatures should look like. And if you do know, you can just… write it that way.
(Plenty of countries just have digital “signing” that’s a bit more like something sane, a central authentication thing based on your ID number and 2FA.)
