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You are here: Home / On Scanning Your Signature

On Scanning Your Signature

By Mark Shead 4 Comments

Several people have commented that scanning your signature is a bad idea because if someone got a hold of the file they could sign away everything you own.  Obviously you should keep the file private. I wouldn’t recommend attaching it to each of your emails or putting it on a web page or anything like that, but it is probably no more risky than anything else you do on a regular basis.

Consider the following:

  1. If you ever write a check or sign a credit card receipt at a store, you are essentially handing a stranger a copy of your signature already.  They could easily digitize it using the process I’ve just shown and use to sign things as you.
  2. Most of the time when you sign something, does anyone verify that it is indeed your signature?  Most stores don’t even verify that your signature matches the back of a credit card.  Someone could just as easily sign something as you using their own handwriting and it would probably slip through just fine.  If you apply for a credit card, they aren’t verifying your signature against anything.  If someone wants to get a credit card in your name, they aren’t going to need your signature to do it.
  3. Anything important is going to require more than just a signature.  If you buy a house or something like that, they are going to require a notarized signature.  That means that someone verified you are who you say before sign the document.

I’m not saying that someone getting your signature couldn’t prove to be inconvenient, but I can’t think of much someone could do that they couldn’t do already.  Especially because most people’s signatures are widely distributed already and it wouldn’t take much effort to get a copy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: paperless, privacy, Technology

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Christine says

    November 9, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Regarding how closely most people verify signatures, I’m sure I won’t be the only person to think of the Credit Card Prank detailed on Zug a couple years ago. Link.

    Reply
  2. Mark Shead says

    November 12, 2007 at 10:34 pm

    @Christine – I reread that after seeing your link. It was pretty amazing what he could get by with as a signature.

    Reply
  3. Max says

    December 10, 2007 at 5:03 am

    Here’s a tip I came across year ago for protecting your bank accounts, traveller’s cheques, etc. In the same way that you might have a common password for all your low-security/risk websites/accounts and a different one for you2 or 3 main high-security/risk websites/accounts, you can do the same with your signature.

    Have one signature for daily use.

    Have another, that is different, for signing when money is involved.

    Reply
  4. Rick says

    July 22, 2010 at 6:37 pm

    I know lots of people who when they send out email or direct mail they used a scanned signature.

    Yikes!!

    Reply

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