Digital Signature for PE Stamp - for small firm

[TBacon]

I work for a small civil/structural engineering firm (two and soon three people who are stamping drawings). I have been looking into the Oregon and Washington state requirements for digital signatures that accompany the stamp on a drawing set. I understand that a digital signature needs to be:
(a) unique to the individual using it
(b) independently verifiable by a Certificate Authority
(c) under control of the registrant using it
(d) linked to the documents so that the dig signature is invalidated if document is revised
(e) bears the phrase "digital signature" in place of handwritten signature

My research has come up with a few providers of digital signatures that meet these qualifications, all of whom charge about $400 a year per registrant.
I'm wondering if anyone has come across a cheaper way to access a digital signature that still meets the requirements indicated above. We work with a combination of Blue Beam and Adobe for pdf production.

Thanks much for your input!

 

[precast78]

This subject is super annoying in my opinion. A scanned PDF of a drawing with a wet stamp is basically the same thing as adding a PNG stamp with your signature on it. Every time you scan a drawing, it lowers the quality of the PDF. I ended up making my own PNG file of my stamp with my signature on it. I digitally added the date with a script font. Then I use adobe acrobat pro to add it on the drawing. This way the drawing is crisp when you print it.

 

[TBacon]

I agree that that the issue is super annoying.

We use a similar workflow to what you have described, but as I understand it this way of doing things does not adhere to the requirements per the Oregon Administrative Rules - because the signature cannot be independent verified by a Certificate Authority. That is what they are charging the $400 for, is the digital ID certification which allows the stamp/signature to be verified.

I'd love to discover that I am mistaken about this or to hear if anyone else has found a legitimate, but cheaper way to adhere to the OAR requirements. Or I wonder if most people in practice don't even realize that the scanned version of their stamp in a pdf document would not be recognized as an "official" stamp in the case of litigation. I mean I'm assuming that that's where this comes into play. Certainly no one at at the building department is looking for validation of engineering stamps in pdf sets.

 

[CCox]

I live and work in Oregon and the jurisdiction I live in still requires a wet signature. It is a pain. Also, I have submitted stamped plans with an electronic signature in other jurisdictions without the digital signature and they have been accepted.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

We have a image file of my bosses stamp, we just print it out, sign it, and then scan the signed stamp. We then import that image into the PDF and done. High quality image with a scanned copy of a wet signed stamp.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.
(Just passed the 16-hour SE exam, woohoo!)

 

[XR250]

Yea, this whole issue really pisses me off. It like these certificate authorities went around the country convincing local jurisdictions that this was a necessary process to prevent fraud (except as noted below). It does ZERO to prevent anything. Anybody can forge a wet seal if they so desire. None of my competitors are even aware of this requirement. I don't think the building departments are either so it has not become an issue yet.

Ironically, I was engineering a house for the head of the county CE department. I was asking him if he was familiar with this requirement. He said, "of course, I made a presentation to the Board of Engineers about implementing it as we have drawing sets with 100's of pages that we had to hand seal" That is when the Board got the bright idea to implement it. Another irony, that CE department STILL does not use that verification process. They just add the seal and sig thru their CAD program (like most of us do). I about strangled him. He was also not aware that it cost $400 a year.

 

[JAE]

Good news in our area (state in US) - the board here finally gave up trying to write engineering provisions that wuuldn't become obsolete in a year or so.

They indicate now that the security of the engineer's seal and signature is up to that engineer.

In other words, the monkey is on our backs to ensure our seal/signature doesn't get abused.

In spite of that we do use Bluebeam which is a pdf reader/writer that has a built-in digital signature and the cost is pretty low.



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[TBacon]

JAE - I am a huge fan of Bluebeam.
I'm curious if you are using the Self-Signed digital signature option via Bluebeam (versus the Third-Party Certificate Authority).

 

[JAE]

Just self-signed as it came "in the box". We didn't reach out to any third party entity.


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