Digital Signatures
A digital (electronic) signature is – like a regular signature on a piece of paper – a method for identification (of the person who wrote the document) or authenticity (so that the recipient of a signed document can be sure of who signed the document). Uppsala University offers two ways of signing documents digitally:
- Using the online service eduSign.
- Using a personal certificate and a PDF-reader.
Choose the method that best suits your needs. Read more about the purport of digital (electronic) signatures here. An active AKKA account and a valid email address connected to the account are required.
Digital Signatures using Sunet eduSign
The eduSign service is available at https://edusign.sunet.se and can be used to quickly and easily upload and digitally sign PDF-documents without installing certificates or any specific software.
Software for Digitally Signing PDF-documents
Several programs have a function for signing a pdf-document digitally. The easiest way is to use "Adobe Acrobat Reader", "PDF-Xchange" or "Libre Office", all of which are free for Uppsala University users.
- Adobe Acrobat Reader can be installed via your client management system using "Software Center" on Windows computers or "Self Service for Mac" on Apple computers.
- PDF-XChange is only available through the "Software Center" on Windows computers.
If Adobe Acrobat notifies you that the signature is invalid:
At present, some digital signatures cannot be validated without some adjustment in standard PDF-readers from Adobe. This is because Adobe has not listed Uppsala University's certificate issuer Sectigo in its catalogue of trusted certificates. Therefore, programs such as Adobe Acrobat Reader may display a message when opening a document stating that the signature is not verified and that the identity behind the signature is unknown.
The notice does not affect the validity of the PDF-document within the university and documents that are signed digitally as specified in the instructions below are accepted for all activities within Uppsala University.