签名 是一个与一个特定的人联系在一起的有特殊风格的笔迹。它类似于印章。在商务和法律中，文档上的签名记录着这个人接受了这份文档。电子签名是指任何有法律效力的，能够表明一个人已经接受了电子消息的内容的电子手段。

电子签名可能被用于电子传输版本的包含签名的文档，比如传真，也可能是一段经过编码的信息，比如使用莫斯电码的电报。而现在愈发常见地，经过加密的数字签名在电子商务和管理存档中被使用，因为数字签名比一个简单的普通电子签名更加安全。

电子签名这个概念自身并不是最新的，普通法承认电报签名可以追溯到19世纪中期，而对于传真，则可以追溯到20世纪80年代。

An electronic signature, or e-signature, is any electronic means that indicates either that a person adopts the contents of an electronic message, or more broadly that the person who claims to have written a message is the one who wrote it (and that the message received is the one that was sent by this person). By comparison, a signature is a stylized script associated with a person. In commerce and the law, a signature on a document is an indication that the person adopts the intentions recorded in the document. Both are comparable to a seal. In many instances, common with engineering companies for example, digital seals are also required for another layer of validation and security. Digital seals and signatures are equivalent to handwritten signatures and stamped seals.