How to use your passport to sign documents

With SignIt, you can use your passport to sign documents, which offers a high degree of online security and identity protection when doing business with companies abroad. However, there are three requirements that need to be met before you can use this feature:

  1. The signatory must physically have their passport at hand.
  2. The passport must contain a microchip that a smartphone can read.
  3. The signatory must have a modern smartphone that supports NFC (Near Field Communication).

In most cases, these requirements will already be met, as many countries now issue passports with chips and an increasing number of smartphones support NFC. However, it's important to be aware of these requirements so that you can ensure your signatories can use their passport to sign documents.

We can now dive into the guide with that out of the way.

In short, step by step

When sending documents to be signed:

  • Log in to your SignIt account and click "Select document". Then, upload the document and any attachments to be signed and continue until you reach the next screen.




  • Here you choose the level of security and confidentiality of the document. As the passport is used to sign with and is mainly used in an international context, you select "Open agreement" or "SMS protected".


    Please note that we generally recommend that you at least choose to send with SMS protection if you have the recipient's mobile number. This way, you can ensure that the document has a level of two-factor authentication.





  • You fill out the recipient's information on the next screen, such as name and email address, but you must tick the mark as shown on the picture. With your mark, you indicate that your recipient can sign using their passport. It also means that you’ll send a link to your agreement in English, but the language of the agreement itself is unchanged.

    Just continue and fill out the date and message to the recipient in the following steps.




  • Once you have filled out the date and message to the recipient, you will see the final screen where you can review and send the document. If everything checks out, click send.

    And voilà: your signatory will now receive a link to the document, where the passport can be selected and used for the digital signature.



 

When receiving documents to be signed:

  • When you receive the email from the sender stating that you have a document ready for signing, open the link provided in the email. In the case of SMS-protected content, you might be receiving a text message with a code you need to enter before you can open, read and eventually sign the document.




  • When you’ve opened the link found in the email, you will come across this window where you can choose how you’d like to sign the document. In this case, you select Passport Reader as indicated in the highlighted field on the image.



  • This will open the window, where you can view the contract and initiate the signing process.



  • Once you click "Sign", it'll open a prompt to download the Nets Passport Reader app, which you will need to sign the agreement. Here, you scan the QR code, which will lead you to the app in either Google Play or the App Store on your smartphone. Once you have downloaded and installed it on your device, open the app and follow the on-screen instructions.

    Nets have made an excellent guide to their app on their international site, which you can check out here. As mentioned, the app has its very own instructions, and this is followed to the end, after which the document can be signed.




 

  • That's it! You've now used your passport to sign the document.