Is there a complexity requirement for a handwritten signature? Handwritten signatures are still used to authenticate a document, even though the more serious operations are done in front of a notary (at least in France). This shows that a trusted third party is perceived as important because a handwritten signature is not enough to ensure authentication. With this in mind, are there requirements for the complexity of a handwritten signature? Is a cross or a circle enough? If it is not - why? I do not believe that &quot;ability to forge&quot; is a possible answer as it is completely subjective. Additionally, an individual cannot consistently replicate their signature. Note 1: the answer will probably depend on the country, if so I am mostly interested in France (or the EU) and the US. A general answer would be great too. Note 2: this problem is solved by an electronic signature (based on a certificate and a hash of the document) - however handwritten signatures still exist
No for the U.S. There is no criteria for graphic complexity in the United States. A signature can still be the historical &quot;X&quot;. If it is some representation of your name, as it ordinarily is, it not need to be remotely legible or a representation of your full name. From FindLaw Usually, a signature is simply someone's name written in a stylized fashion. However, that is not really necessary. All that needs to be there is some mark that represents you. It can be -- as many signatures end up -- a series of squiggles, a picture, or historically, even the traditional &quot;X&quot; for people who couldn't read and write. As long as it adequately records the intent of the parties involved in a contractual agreement, it's considered a valid signature.
You have not committed a crime or a violation of non-criminal law when you swear something under oath believing in good faith that what you are saying is true, and you are mistaken. The law does not expect omniscience. Also, making a false statement under oath is only sanctionable if you make a false statement of a &quot;material fact.&quot; Whether or not you have a Social Security number is not a &quot;material fact&quot; in the context of a passport application where the material facts are that you are the same person as the person described in your birth certificate, that the parents there are to the best of your knowledge your parents, that the birth certificate is authentic, and that you have not renounced U.S. citizenship. The question about a Social Security number is there for administrative convenience, not to make any determination about your right to a passport. You should apply for a Social Security number. If you already have one, your actions consistent with not having one will only corroborate the fact that you were ignorant of that fact when you applied for a passport, and you will have your existing Social Security number provided to you. As a practical matter it is unlikely that you have one. There are no forms that your non-U.S. parents would have to be filled out that would have required one, and you know that you haven't applied for one in the past. Before Social Security numbers of dependents were required on U.S. tax forms, most people didn't get Social Security numbers until they got their first job.
No. In most civil-law countries, including France, a testament must follow very specific forms. It must be either handwritten (holographic will) or confirmed by a notary (authentic will, mystic will). Both possibilities preclude wills as video.
The USPS and other postal services have created a service called Digital Postmarks or EPCM (Electronic Postal Certification Mark) to address exactly this problem. Basically you can upload any document that you want to be "unalterable and time stamped". The service computes a hash (a number that will change if the contents change), and store the time stamp and the hash on a secure server. If, at some time in the future, you want to confirm the authenticity of the document, you can upload another copy - the fact that it produces the same hash proves it's not been tampered with.
Whether consent is necessary depends on the specific processing purposes. For example, general usage statistics about search terms or about the usage of the site likely fall under a legitimate interest. Outside of the GDPR, there can be consent requirements for the use of specific technologies. Per the ePrivacy directive, consent is required for accessing or setting cookies on a user device, unless the cookie is strictly necessary for the service requested by the user (“functional cookie”). This consent requirement also extends to other storage and fingerprinting technologies. A functional cookie could e.g. be used to store a history of search terms on the user device itself. However, ad personalization is not strictly necessary for the search functionality, so setting cookies (or using similar technologies) for ad personalization requires consent, regardless of whether ad personalization itself would require consent. To determine whether a processing purpose falls under a legitimate interest, the data controller must weight the interest against the data subject's rights and freedoms. There are no objective guidelines on this, and ultimately a court would have to decide. However, I would assume that the tracking necessary for ad personalization is an inappropriate infringement on the data subject's rights and freedoms, so that ad personalization cannot fall under a legitimate interest. The data controller would have to choose a different legal basis, which effectively only leaves consent.
This is very common in all sorts of legal documents, not just the United States Code. Another familiar example where this is seen is on checks. It serves as a sort of &quot;redundancy check&quot;, to help catch errors where either the words or the numerals could have been incorrectly transcribed. Of course, one could ask why similar redundancy isn't used to avoid errors in other contexts; there doesn't seem to be a good answer for this besides &quot;tradition&quot;. Some people feel the practice is obsolete and should be abandoned, e.g. https://www.butlersnow.com/2020/04/five-5-reasons-to-stop-writing-numbers-like-this/.
The requirements for a valid will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In most U.S. states there is a two part test. One part is determined based upon the face of the document, the other is based upon extrinsic evidence. Formal Requirements To be formally valid without a hearing unless an interested party requests one in most U.S. states on its face (i.e. to be a &quot;self-proving will&quot;) a will must: Be in writing. Be signed by the person making the will who is at least eighteen years of age. Be signed by at least two witnesses who do not have conflicts of interest, who are attesting that the person making the will was competent and that they saw him or her sign it. The signatures of the witnesses must be notarized. If their statements are not notarized, usually at least one witness must testify in a hearing or with a later affidavit. The language of the will must indicate an intent to make a binding disposition of property in the estate of the person making it when they die, and other rights related to their estate and their death. Various exceptions to these requirements exist in most state (e.g. a &quot;holographic will&quot; is valid if it is in writing, indicates the necessary intent, is signed, and has its material provision substantially in the hand writing of the person writing it). Some states allow oral wills called &quot;nuncupative wills&quot; in very specific circumstances usually limited to soldiers or sailors in circumstances of actual battle or imminent mayhem likely to result in death, with the proper witnesses. A will is like a dollar bill, a copy is not as good as the original document. If the original document cannot be found it is presumed that the will was revoked by physical destruction of the will, in the absence of evidence to the contrary submitted at a hearing to a judge. Extrinsic Requirements Any interested party can contest a will that appears valid on its face under the standards describe above on several grounds. Two of these relate to the condition of the person signing the will at the time it was signed. The notarized witness statements create a presumption that these two conditions were met. But, that presumption can be overcome with other evidence from witnesses and/or documents or other kinds of evidence. These conditions are: The document was procured from the person making it with duress or undue influence, even if the person making it did have &quot;testamentary capacity.&quot; The person making it lacked testamentary capacity which is also a two part test. The first part is that the person making it knows who their family and the &quot;natural objects of their bounty are&quot;, knows in general terms what they own, and knows what a will is intended to do and is capable of understanding the general outlines of what it does. This basically rules out people with severe dementia. The second part is that if the person is not suffering from dementia but is suffering from hallucinations, that the hallucinations have not influenced the nature of the provisions contained in the will. In practice, &quot;undue influence&quot; is the predominant ground for contesting wills that are formally valid on their face because testamentary capacity is a very low standard. A will can also be contested on the grounds involving extrinsic evidence that: A later validly executed document revoked the will, or The document is a forgery. If any of the issues related to extrinsic evidence are disputed, both the party contesting the will, and the party defending it, has a right to have that issue resolved in a jury trial, although often the right to a jury trial in a case like this is waived by the parties. This is determined by making a reasonable inquiry before submitting the will and examining the physical document and the place where it was when it was discovered, closely. The inquiry should be very searching if the terms of the will are surprising, and can be fairly lax if the terms of the will are what was widely expected. There is generally a notice given to all interested parties when a will is submitted to a court with probate jurisdiction to be given effect that contains a deadline to raise a contest along these lines. A will that is not submitted to a court with probate jurisdiction usually has no force or effect until that happen in most U.S. jurisdictions. Public Policy Even if the will is valid in general, some terms of the will may be invalid as a matter of public policy, or modified by statue, in certain circumstances. These exceptions can usually be determined on the face of the document or with minimal additional information (although &quot;your mileage may vary&quot; and cases where, for example, the cause of death or date of death is uncertain can be difficult). For example, the following limitations are common: A term in a will conditioning a gift at death on marrying or not marrying a particular person is void in most, if not all, U.S. states. Under certain circumstances a will is required to leave certain minimum amounts to a surviving spouse and/or minor dependent children. If a will appears to omit a child of the person making it by accident, it is modified in particular ways mandated by statute. Will provisions making gifts at death or giving responsibilities to someone who murdered the person who wrote the will are void. Some states invalidate provisions in favor of an ex-spouse upon divorce, unless a post-divorce document reaffirms those inheritances. Certain kinds of words are given defined statutory meanings unless the express language of a will says otherwise, such as &quot;by representation&quot;, or &quot;if he survives me&quot;, that are not necessarily intuitive or in line with every day use of language. It is usually necessary to review the probate court and case law in the state where the decedent was domiciled at death to determine if these limitations apply, ideally with a probate or estate administration lawyer.
Yes, encrypted personal data potentially still is personal data, so some prior thought is necessary. But are you a controller who is processing this personal data? Possibly not. This hinges on what kind of metadata you process, and whether the encryption happens under your authority, e.g. by a software that you provision. If all you can ever get is the encrypted data but not the plaintext, then you can probably treat this similar to pseudonymous or anonymous data. A related example is a postal service. Letters might contain sensitive personal data. But the postal service is not processing the letter contents, and cannot be treated as a controller of this data. (The postal service is prevented by law from processing this data, you are prevented by the encryption). However, a postal service processes personal data like addresses on the envelope. You might want to create a Records of Processing document, which will help you understand what (potentially) personal data you will process. If you are processing patient data on behalf of a healthcare provider, you might want to look into whether you are a controller or a processor. Processor status is not automatic but requires a suitable contract with the controller. As a processor you still have to take appropriate security measures, but you are not responsible for determining the purposes of processing or for responding to data subject requests.