So your last paragraph is a bit off. One it was generally checked with your id that the names were the same. I often had to sign a non typical signature because of a place that required the full name. then also signing someone elses name on a document would be something they can go after you for. Im not sure which all laws but you can’t pretend to be someone you are not with contracts and agreements and such.
Signatures have never required cursive. Historically, people who couldn’t read or write would just put an X in the signature spot and that was valid. Yeah, there is a marginal benefit to physically signing something in cursive, but the purpose of signing it has always been more of a final agreement step.
If handwriting and spelling and how I signed it actually mattered at all legally, then I could sign a different name when I buy a car, get keys, drive away, and later in court, say “well I never agreed to pay for this car, look at my signature, it says Frank Sinatra”. Same goes for a true forgery. The evidence I didn’t sign it myself is my statement in court saying “I didn’t sign this”, and whatever signs there are that I didn’t benefit from this.
HubertManne@piefed.social 4 days ago
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I was still speaking historically, so I meant before easy checks like your ID were in place. Its definitely harder to do that, nowadays. But of course they can go after you for it, that’s my point. You’ve agreed to a contract by the act of signing anything. If I forge a name of a nonexistent person, they can still go after me as if I’d signed it normally, because the act of signing at all is what binds me, not what I actually sign. I held the pen, I agreed to the contract. It would be ridiculous to escape legal consequences by doing things like signing differently, and in this area of law, at least in the US, common sense prevailed and I’ll be liable for whatever I willingly signed, whether that’s my name, an X, a fingerprint, a fake name, or anything else.
Osan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Where I come from the X thing wouldn’t be legally binding. What people who couldn’t read or write would do is using their fingerprints. They would put their finger on a stamp ink pad and then stamp the paper with their finger. That’s why we say “someone who uses their fingerprint” as a euphemism for “illiterate”.
Khanzarate@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s really interesting and a great way to do that, honestly. A singular fingerprint also makes more sense than needing handwriting analysis to detect a forgery, too. Kinda feel that should be the norm everywhere, honestly, a signing and a print next to it to verify against if the need arises.
Osan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
P.S. Sorry for the rant you can ignore this post. I’m just frustrated with the bureaucracy here.
I mean sure but these bureaucratic laws and practices are ancient. I come from Egypt and the bureaucracy here is terrible. To do anything government related you have you to free an entire day and some times almost a week from your schedule just to finish the paperwork and visit the required government offices. Why is that still necessary in the digital age.
When our government decided to digitise they didn’t upgrade their system they just added additional digital steps. So now the process has even more redundant steps. The issue is that the rules are too old and the system is too centralised and also fragmented. To get a single paper/request approved you usually have to go through multiple departments, offices and ministries each with their own rules, requirements and paperwork, while we have the infrastructure to just do it with a single paper, an ID and a biometric scanner and share the info between departments digitally. Also a system this complex has to have many loopholes and bound for corruption.
The argument I keep hearing for bureaucracy is that the government has to keep providing government jobs to reduce unemployment since a significant portion work in the public sector, but these jobs are useless anyway we can give some of them actually useful tasks and with the saved money we can put it to better the welfare system. Another argument is that you have pay multiple fees, but then you can also take these fees as a single summed transaction and save the time.