Which contracts can I not sign electronically?

Documents that require notarization, such as real estate purchase contracts, wills, marriage contracts or the formation of a GmbH (German limited liability company). In addition, the law excludes the electronic form in a few cases, for example for the termination of employment (§ 623 BGB). Paper remains mandatory here.

What exactly is eIDAS?

The eIDAS Regulation (EU 910/2014) is the European framework for electronic identification and trust services. It defines the three signature levels SES, AES and QES and applies directly in all EU member states, without any need for national implementing laws.

Is a scanned signature enough?

Technically, a scanned signature is just an image and can be copied at will. It offers neither integrity protection nor unique attribution. An electronic signature with an audit trail holds up as evidence, a scan does not.

Does SmartDocs meet the requirements of the GDPR?

Yes. All data is processed exclusively in German data centers, with no transfers to third countries. We provide a data processing agreement (DPA), documentation of technical and organizational measures (TOMs) and a deletion concept.

Security and data protection

Security and data protection without compromise

Contracts are among the most confidential things a company handles digitally. That's why SmartDocs answers the most important question first: your data stays in Germany.

Hosted in Germany
GDPR compliant
eIDAS compliant
ISO 27001

Signed document with a security seal in front of a map of Germany

Infrastructure

German data centers, German law

Where the servers are determines which law applies to your data. With SmartDocs, the answer is clear.

Server racks with cables and status lights in a data center

Data center in Nuremberg

All documents, signatures and evidence data are processed and stored exclusively in an ISO 27001 certified data center in Germany.

No transfer to third countries

No US cloud, no standard contractual clauses, no transfer impact assessment needed. That makes your GDPR review much shorter.

Encryption every step of the way

TLS 1.2+ in transit, AES-256 at rest. Key management and access are logged.

Role-based access

Owner, admin, member: permissions per organization, plus custom roles on the Enterprise plan. API keys carry their own role and can be revoked at any time.

Evidential value

The hash chain: tampering ruled out mathematically

Every event in a signature request gets a SHA-256 hash that includes the hash of the previous event. If even a single byte is changed afterward, the chain visibly breaks. That property is exactly what makes the audit trail so valuable in court.

Timestamp, IP address and device for every event
Completion certificate as PDF for every completed request
Full evidence export for your legal department and audits

Evidence for a signature request: confirmed SMS code, confirmed identity and the full audit trail from Sent through Opened to Signed

Compliance

Audited and documented

Security you don't have to take on faith, because you can check it.

eIDAS compliant

All three signature levels under EU Regulation 910/2014. QES is issued through qualified trust service providers.

GDPR package

You get the data processing agreement (DPA), documentation of technical and organizational measures (TOMs) and the deletion policy from us, without back-and-forth requests.

ISO 27001

Information security management to the international standard, from the data center to the development process.

Need documents for your data protection or security review? Talk to us, and we'll provide the DPA, TOM documentation and proof of certification.

FAQ

Questions about law and data protection

We cover the legal details in depth on a separate page: legal validity of electronic signatures.

Yes. Electronically signed documents are admissible as evidence (Art. 25 eIDAS). What matters is the documentation: for every request, SmartDocs creates an audit trail with timestamps and a hash chain, plus a completion certificate.

Security you can show

Try SmartDocs for free, then win over your data protection officer. We'll help with all the documents.

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