| 01. |
What is the legal framework for Digitally Signed Documents in India? |
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The Government of India has enacted the IT Act 2000 on 7th June 2000 with an aim to provide a Legal and Regulatory Framework for promotion of E-Commerce and E-Governance. The Act contains the provisions with regard to Legal recognition of Digital Signatures, security procedure for Electronic Records and Digital Signature, appointment of Certifying Authorities and Controller of Certifying Authorities, Issue of License to Certifying Authorities to issue Digital Signature Certificates, etc. among other Legislative Provisions. Use of electronic records or Digital Signature would be valid in Government and its agencies as per the provision of the Act. |
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| 02. |
What is a Digital Signature? |
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A Digital Signature is not same as a Digitized Signature (a scan of a hand-written signature). A Digital Signature is an encryption and decryption process that does two things viz., positively identifies the author of an electronic message (who has digitally signed the message) and verifies the integrity of the message (that it has not been tampered with during its transmission).
Digital Signatures are based on the RSA Public Key Encryption System. In this system the author of a message keeps his/her private key secret and publishes the corresponding public key. Any text encrypted with the private key can be decrypted with the public key, and vice versa. However, the knowledge of the public key is not sufficient to deduce the private key. Therefore the holder of a public key cannot pretend to be the holder of the corresponding private key. |
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| 03. |
How does a Digital Signature look like? |
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A sample Digital Signature looks as under: |
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| 04. |
Can the signer's handwritten signature be viewed? |
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No, there is no relationship to the signer's handwritten signature. The visible portion of the Digital Signature contains the signer's name, title and organization name, along with the Certificate serial number and the Certifying Authority name. |
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| 05. |
What is a Digital Signature Certificate? |
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A Digital Signature certificate is a computer-generated record. It contains the identity record. It contains the identity of the subscriber (holder of the certificate), the public key which is digitally signed by the Certifying Authority. The Digital Signature certificate is associated with both a public key and a private key.
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| 06. |
Who can issue a Digital Signature certificate to a subscriber? |
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A Certifying Authority can issue a Digital Signature certificate to a subscriber. The IT Act and the Certifying Authorities Rules framed under the Act stipulates the methods for issuance of a Digital Signature certificate. |
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| 07. |
What is a Certification Authority and who appoints them? |
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A Certification Authority is a trusted third party that verifies the identity of an applicant registering for a digital certificate. Once a Certification Authority is satisfied as to the authenticity of an applicant's identity, it issues that person a digital certificate binding his or her identity to a public key. In case of SHAREKHAN, the certifying authority is Safe Scrypt.
The Controller of Certifying Authorities has appointed Safe Scrypt as the first Certifying Authority in India. |
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| 08. |
Can a Digital Signature be tampered or forged? |
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Almost Impossible. Several layers of highly complex encryption protect it. With digital signatures, forgery is much more difficult than forging a handwritten signature. First, a Digital Signature is more of a process than just affixing a signature. For example, when the document is "Digitally Signed", the Digital software scans the document and creates a calculation, which represents the document. This calculation becomes part of the "Digital Signature." When the recipient authenticates the signature, a similar process is carried out. The sender's and the receiver's calculations are then compared. If the results are the same, the signature is valid; if they are different, the signature is not valid. |
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| 09. |
How will SHAREKHAN function in this environment? |
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SHAREKHAN is making use of this technology to sign the contract notes digitally and making the same available online. Digitally signed contract notes would be made available to the customers by evening on the trading day itself. Features include the provision to verify the authenticity of the Digital Signatures.
SEBI has permitted issuance of digitally signed contract notes vide its Circular (SMDRP/POLICY/CIR-56/00 dated December 15, 2000), With the appointment of Certifying Authorities, and the approval from SEBI, Digitally Signed Contract Notes are now acceptable as legally valid document. |
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| 10. |
How can I view the Digitally Singed Contract Note? |
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After you log in, you would have to click Report ==> Cash ==> Contract Notes. You would have to select the date range and the segment Either NSE CASH or NSEFO and click on
Filter Button as
follows:
The signature will appear as follows:
Click View Contract Note. The digital contract will open in a new window as follows:
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| 11. |
Can I print this Contract Note? |
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Yes, there is an option of printing the Contract Note. Select Print this document icon and print the contract note on your printer. |
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| 12. |
Will I continue to receive Physical Contract Notes? |
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You will not receive the contract note in the physical format. However SHAREKHAN would send a consolidated physical statement for the transactions done during the month. |
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| 13. |
Do I pay anything for the Digitally Signed Contract Notes? |
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No. You do not have to pay anything to Sharekhan or anyone for the Digitally Signed Contract Notes. |
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| 14. |
For what duration would the Digitally Signed Contract Notes will be available on the website? |
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You can view the Digital Signature Certificate on the website up to 3 months from the trade date. |
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| 15. |
Whom should I contact in case I encounter some problems? |
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Ideally the same will not happen but in case you encounter any such situation please send a E-mail at myaccount@sharekhan.com and send us the screen shot of verification fail message. For any other queries on Digitally Signed Contract Notes you need to send the E-mail at myaccount@sharekhan.com. |
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| 16. |
How to do I get the Endorser Verifier Setup? |
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The Endorsor Verifier utility is available on the WebSite. Login to the MyAccount and click on the link MyAccount. You will be able to see a link "Download Verifier exe for Digital Contract which is next to FAQ digital contracts. |
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| 17. |
How to Install the Endorsor Verifier? |
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Double click on the EndorsorVerifierSetup.exe file which is downloaded from the WebSite. Click on "I Agree" button when the License Agreement is popped up. Then select the Folder in which you would like to install the verifier exe by clicking on the browse button. Once the folder is selected, click on the "Install" button. Wait for about 30 sec, you will be able to see a "Welcome to Certificate Manager Import Wizard", continue the installation without changing anything which is prompted. Click on "Next". You will have two options where to store the Certificate.
1) Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of Certificate.
2) Place all certificates into a selected area. Folder where the certificate will be placed needs to be selected.
Keep the default one selected. Again click on "Next", then "Finish" and finally "No" which are the default enabled buttons.
To check if the Verifier has been installed successfully, click on the "Show Details" button on the Endorsor Verifier Setup screen.
Click on Close button on the Endorsor Verifier. |
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| 18. |
What do I do with the Digital Contract received through E-mail? |
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The ZIP file mailed will be having two files, one is the HTML file which is the Contract Note and second the SIG file which is the signature file to verify the contract note. You can save the files in a specified folder as per your requirement. By default the files will be unzipped in the folder \Endosor\mailer folder. |
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| 19. |
How to I verify my Contract Note using Endorsor Verifier? |
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Invoke the endorsor verifier. You will be prompted to select the document i.e. The Digital Contract Note. Click on the browse button to find / select the contract note where it has been saved from the Mail. After selecting the Contract Note, select the signature received with it. The signature will be having the file extension name as 'sig'. Once the signature is selected from the respective location click on the verify button. A pop up window will appear showing the Status of Content as Not altered. The name of the digital signatory will be displayed along with the organisation name. The document will be displayed on clicking the "Ok" button. The CRL (Certificate Revokation Log) path is not required. Keep it empty.
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| 20. |
What is CRL? |
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CRL - Certificate revokation log is provided by CA - Versign. It needs to be downloaded from the certificate issuing authority. It checks whether the person signing the contract have been revoked by the authority or not. |
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