Send the consent form PDF to respondents for signature, collect completed forms, and track who has signed so I can clo…
Open the signed PDF document in Adobe Acrobat.
Open the Signatures panel from the navigation pane.
Right-click the signature you want to validate and select Validate Signature.
In the signature validation status dialog, review the signature details and validation status.
Click Show Certificate to review certificate details and ensure it matches the required legal or industry standard (e.g., eIDAS, FDA 21 CFR Part 11).
CautionYou must know your organization's required certificate authorities and validation criteria for compliance.
Review the signature properties panel for compliance details specific to regulatory standards.
NoteThis option appears only if the signature contains compliance information.
Check the validation summary for explicit compliance statements or error messages regarding legal or industry standards.
If the signature is not compliant, consult your organization's digital signature policy or contact your certificate provider for remediation.
Best practiceSome enterprise workflows require importing trusted root certificates into Acrobat's trusted identities list to validate signatures against specific regulations.
You can configure trusted identities in Acrobat to ensure signatures are validated against your organization's compliance requirements.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
Validating a digital signature is important to make sure the ethics document is real and has not been changed since it was signed. It confirms the identity of the signer and that the document's content is trustworthy. This prevents fraud and ensures the document's integrity.
A trusted identity is a digital certificate that you have manually told Acrobat you trust. When you validate a digital signature, Acrobat checks if the signer's certificate is from a trusted identity. If it is, Acrobat can confirm the signature's validity more easily and reliably. Without trust, Acrobat cannot fully confirm the signer's identity or the document's integrity, which is key for important ethics documents.
No, seeing a digital signature does not automatically mean it is valid. You must perform the validation steps in Acrobat. The signature's validity depends on your trust in the signer's certificate and if it has expired or been revoked. Always click on the signature and choose 'Validate Signature' to be sure.
To ensure a digital signature remains valid over time, you can add 'verification info' to the document. This is called Long Term Validation (LTV). LTV embeds important information, like timestamps and revocation status, directly into the document. This way, even if the original certificate expires later, the signature's validity at the time of signing can still be confirmed.