How BankID Signing works

What is digital signing?

Digital signing can be explained as sealing a document or another digital file. It means that the document receives a “stamp” showing when it was signed and who signed it. The document cannot be changed afterwards without breaking the seal.

In practice, this means that both the sender and the recipient can be confident about who signed, when it was done, and that the contents have not been tampered with.

BankID provides signatures at a qualified level

A qualified electronic signature (QES), which BankID will offer from autumn 2025, is a digital signature with multiple layers of security and trust that ensures the integrity of both the document and the signature.

• Those who sign the document must verify their identity with an electronic ID, so you can be confident about who has signed.
• The provider of the signature (that is, the one who creates the seal and the signing certificate, in our case BankID) must be on the EU trusted list.

To be included on the EU’s trusted list, a provider of digital signatures must be approved as a qualified trust service provider under the strict requirements of the eIDAS Regulation. This means they must document quality both in their technical solutions and in their procedures.

What are the advantages of qualified signatures?

Qualified electronic signatures meet strict compliance requirements that apply throughout the EU/EEA. This means that signatures can be made across national borders within Europe and still be legally valid.

Qualified signatures are legally equivalent to handwritten signatures. Simple e-signatures, such as clicking “accept” or typing a name into a form, provide much weaker evidential value in a potential dispute, since the link between the document and the actual person is weaker.