Can I fill the form electronically ?

[hamda]

Hi,
Can I fill in the form on computer, including the details of the refrees? I can then email the form to the refrees, they can sign it on the computer and then send them back to me? Is it OK?

[barisaslan]

I would advise against doing this very much. It's already stressful with them and this is almost certainly not going to be accepted by them. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think it's worth the hassle.

[littlerr]

You can certainly fill in the application electronically. I did that myself and I knew other people who did it in the past. However, that does not include the signature part. I would not even fill out the referee's addresses on the computer, because essentially you want to convince INIS that these are 3 real humans, each having different handwriting.

I know there are many e-signature software out there that meet legal requirements. However, as you are not submitting the form electronically, legally they are not valid.

In order to meet the legal requirement (on e-commerce anyway), an e-signature has to be traceable - which means the form itself needs to have a unique form ID, which is usually an internal ID number generated by the system and it cannot be altered manually. Because you are just printing the form off eventually and mailing them to INIS, they are not considered valid e-signatures.