Electronic signature and verification

1. Which signature is used here, and what it is not

When you sign a document on the Iberfácil platform, you are using an advanced electronic signature based on evidence.

What that means: the system does not merely record that you pressed a button. It freezes the document, checks who you are by the means indicated below, records the entire interaction and builds an evidence file that makes it possible to prove, afterwards, what was signed, who signed it and when.

What it is NOT: it is not a qualified electronic signature. A qualified signature requires a qualified certificate and a qualified signature creation device, and has by law the same effect as a handwritten signature. The evidence-based signature does not have that automatic legal presumption: its strength depends on the quality of the evidence, which is precisely what is taken care of here.

If you have your own electronic certificate, you can use it to sign. If that certificate is qualified and you use it with a qualified signature creation device, your signature is indeed qualified, with the value that the law gives it. If these two conditions are not both met, your signature is not qualified.

The platform's evidence-based signature is never presented as “qualified”. If you read that anywhere, it is an error: let us know and we will correct it.

2. How signing works

The method is decided by the type of document, not by you. A court submission requires the qualified signature of the professional who signs it; an engagement sheet is handled with a one-time code.

The process, step by step

1. The document is generated and its digital fingerprint is frozen. From then on, any change is detectable.
2. You receive a link by SMS, email or messaging, with prior identification.
3. You open and read the complete document. It is recorded that you opened it, how long you spent and how far you got.
4. You expressly accept and receive a one-time code. You enter it.
5. The result is sealed and the evidence package is built.

3. What the evidence package contains

• The digital fingerprint of the signed document.
• Who signed and how their identity was determined.
• The telephone number to which the code was sent and the operator's delivery receipt.
• The time of sending and validation of the code.
• IP address and device from which it was signed.
• The complete chronology of the interaction.
• The exact text of the consent that was shown to you.
• A timestamp over the whole package.

All of this is delivered in an evidence document signed with Iberfácil's certificate and attached to the main document. You can always download it from your private area.

4. Several signatories

When a document needs more than one signature —you and the case manager, several joint holders, or Iberfácil's seal alongside your signature—, the document is not considered signed until all the signatures are in place, each with its own evidence package.

5. The signature sheet: what you see on paper

A signature sheet is added to every document that Iberfácil signs, with the details of the signature, and in the margin of each page a side band with the brand, the word “FIRMADO” [“SIGNED”], the signature text and the address of the verifier with the code.

Two honest clarifications about that band:

• The band is not the signature. What signs the document is the cryptogram; the band is a visual layer. The fact that a document carries a band does not make it signed.
• The band is never overprinted on the content: the content is rescaled and the band goes in the margin, so that nothing covers what the document says.
• Official emblems are not imitated. The band carries Iberfácil's brand, never elements that could make anyone believe that the document comes from a public body.

Nothing is stamped on third-party documents. The receipt of a registry filing, a court's official record (diligencia) or a notary's copy are kept as they are, with their own signature or seal. Iberfácil's verification code identifies, in our verifier, the verification record that we hold in custody of that document; it is never superimposed on the original of an outside body.

6. The secure verification code (código seguro de verificación, CSV) and the public verifier

These rules apply to documents that have an Iberfácil secure verification code. A QR code, on its own, does not prove the signature or guarantee the result of the query.

With that code, anyone who has it can consult the public verifier and, if it finds the document:

• View the verification record and the fingerprint of the document when they are available, and compare the fingerprint of an identical digital copy; this check does not, on its own, prove who signed or that the document is in force.
• Download the original as it was signed, while it is available (see 6.3).

What the verifier shows: the document's verification record —the data that each type of document decides to show— and the fingerprint of the signed original, so that whoever has a copy can compare it. The signatories' names appear masked: the full first name and the rest as initials (for example, “María G. L.”). There are exceptions, among them: in signatures made in a representative capacity, the represented company is shown in full; in manually sealed documents, the organisation is shown; in feasibility studies, the public name of the team member who signs is shown; and some types of document show no names. Except for the cancellation notice (6.1), it never adds data that is not in the document, nor information from the case file. The masking of the verification record does not anonymise the file that can be downloaded. The fingerprint makes it possible to compare a digital copy of the file, not a sheet of paper.

If the original file is missing or its fingerprint does not match the one registered, the verifier responds “No encontramos ese documento” [“We could not find that document”], just as it does for a code that does not exist, and an internal alert is generated. This happens with documents signed on the platform and with other types of document. For some others, the verification record is shown anyway and what fails is the download of the original.

Queries to the verifier may be logged (code queried, time, IP address and result) as evidence of access. That log is not public.

6.1 Status notice: “ANULADO” [“CANCELLED”]

The verifier shows a single status notice: “ANULADO” [“CANCELLED”], with the date and the reason for the cancellation. It appears only on manually sealed documents (those that the organisation itself seals with its certificate or seal, article 2). All other documents are shown without a notice.

6.2 Authentic and in force are not the same

It is worth keeping this distinction clear:

• Authentic means that the document you have in front of you is exactly the one that was signed and that nobody has altered it. The fingerprint proves this, and it never changes.
• In force means that the document still has effect. That depends on the validity period of each document and may end.

An expired document is still authentic: its fingerprint still matches, and it still proves that the document was signed on that date. What has expired is its effectiveness, not its authenticity.

The verifier does not indicate whether a document is still in force or has expired: it only reports what appears in its verification record and, for manually sealed documents, whether it has been cancelled.

Expiry is set for each document, not for its type: a power of attorney with one year of validity and a certificate with another do not share a rule.

6.3 If the original is no longer available

Documents have retention periods (Document Custody Terms). The existence of a printed code does not guarantee the future availability of the verification record or of the original.

This is what the verifier does today when the original is no longer available:

Depending on the type of document, the verifier responds “No encontramos ese documento” [“We could not find that document”] or shows the verification record without offering the download of the original.

The exercise of the right to erasure does not modify the verifier: the verification record, with the signatories' names masked and the fingerprint, is not deleted or anonymised for that reason. It is kept as evidence of the signature, for as long as necessary to prove what was signed and, in any event, for the limitation period (prescripción) of the actions that document may support (Privacy Policy, article 12).

The printed code does not guarantee that the query will find the document. Depending on the type of document, the absence of the original may prevent the verification record from being viewed or cause only the download to fail.

6.4 Where it is verified: one address per brand

The platform operates several brands. The verifier does not live at a single central address: each brand has its own, on the domain of that brand and at the path /csv.

• A document issued under the IBERFÁCIL brand is verified at iberfacil.es/csv.
• A document issued under any other brand operated on the platform is verified on the domain of that brand, at the same path /csv.

The specific address is printed on the document itself and encoded in its QR code: whoever has the paper does not need to know anything more.

The signature band carries the brand of the issuer, and the verifier lives where that brand lives. That is why the path /csv responds on all brand domains, not just the main one.

6.5 Continuity of verification

A code is printed on paper and cannot be withdrawn from circulation: ten years from now there may still be copies in a court case file, in an archive or in a customer's drawer.

For that reason, Iberfácil makes the following commitment:

All issued codes must be able to continue to be verified at iberfacil.es/csv, regardless of what happens to the domain of the brand under which the document was issued. If that brand changes domain, ceases to operate or passes into other hands, Iberfácil undertakes to maintain that fallback address so that the code can continue to be verified.

Two clarifications about that commitment:

1. The fact that a brand leaves the platform does not make it possible to ensure that its documents remain verifiable.
2. For anyone verifying a document from a brand that no longer operates, the commitment is the same as for any other document: the verification record and, while it is available, the download of the original.

7. Real limit of the signature level, stated plainly

Today the platform does not have an electronic signature with guaranteed long-term preservation (the level that makes it possible to verify a document ten years later even if the intermediate certificates expire). It is a real technical limitation, which is planned to be resolved.

What this means for you:

• For documents of the relationship with Iberfácil —engagement sheets, consents, internal powers of attorney, authorisations— the available level is adequate and is the one used by the sector.
• For documents with effects that may have to be sustained years later —a criminal complaint (denuncia), a written submission with evidentiary value— it is a limitation that is worth knowing about.

8. Power of attorney: the normal route for Iberfácil to act for you

To act on your behalf before the Administration or the courts, the preferred route is not that you give us your certificate, but that you grant us power of attorney:

The power of attorney may name the entity Iberfácil and, in addition, specific professionals. You can revoke one without revoking the others.

If a public body requests, in the middle of the case, a power of attorney of a higher rank, it is not an error: you are notified, the corresponding procedure is opened with its time limit, and the case file proceeds while it is resolved.

Limitation you need to know about: if you revoke a power of attorney directly before the public body, the notary or the court, Iberfácil has no automatic way of finding out. Notify us as well.

9. Custody of third-party certificates

9.1 What it is and when it is used

In limited cases, a collaborating professional may deposit their electronic certificate in Iberfácil's vault so that signing can be done with it in specific procedures.

It is not the default route, and must not be. The default route is the power of attorney described in article 8.

9.2 The risk, clearly stated to the holder

A qualified signature certificate for a natural person is issued under the commitment that you keep exclusive control of your signing keys. Keeping your certificate in custody and signing with it in your name —even where there is an express authorisation that you sign— is a widespread practice in the sector and legally fragile: the authorisation does not transfer ownership, and in the event of an incident you remain the one responsible for a signature you did not make. If, in addition, the procedure has procedural effects, the exposure is greater.

Before authorising custody, consider the two alternatives: power of attorney (article 8) and remote signing with your own provider, in which you keep exclusive control.

9.3 What exactly you sign when you authorise

The custody authorisation is a document separate from the collaboration contract, which you sign with a one-time code, and which sets out:

• Which specific procedures the authorisation covers. Never a general authorisation.
• For which case files or customers.
• From when and until when, with a short expiry period.
• That you can revoke it at any time and with immediate effect.

9.4 How your certificate is protected

• It lives in an isolated vault to which the web server has no read access.
• Each certificate is encrypted with its own key; that key is in turn protected with a master key that is outside the database and outside the reach of the web application.
• Every signing operation is logged in a chained history: what was signed, when, who requested it, on whose behalf and under what authorisation. Tampering with that history afterwards is detectable.
• You can consult at any time all the signatures made with your certificate.

9.5 Life cycle

• Expiry notices at 60, 30 and 7 days.
• Automatic blocking on expiry: no signing is done with an expired certificate.
• Immediate revocation at your request, cutting off all uses and with notification to you.

10. Your certificate when you access the platform

If you log in with your electronic certificate, we do not store it: it is used only to establish the secure connection. The issuer, the serial number, the fingerprint of the certificate and the result of the revocation check are recorded.

Honest consequence: we cannot monitor whether your certificate is revoked between one session and another. We check it every time you use it. We do not promise continuous monitoring that we cannot deliver.

11. Custody of your documents

The retention of the documents in your case file is regulated in the Document Custody Terms.

12. Versions of this document

Every published version of this document is archived and remains accessible.

In the event of any discrepancy between the Spanish version and any translation, the Spanish version prevails.