Electronic seal

An electronic seal is data that organisations attach under eIDAS to prove origin and integrity; creating or validating it is the trust service.

Under eIDAS, an electronic seal is the counterpart of an electronic signature for legal persons: an organisation (not a natural person) attaches it to data to guarantee origin and integrity. Think of automatically sealed invoices, extracts, diplomas or API responses.

Like signatures, seals come in simple, advanced and qualified levels. A seal proves that the data comes from the organisation and has not been changed; it does not express the will of a person, which is the legal difference with a signature. A qualified seal additionally benefits from a legal presumption of integrity of the data and correctness of the origin, and is recognised across the EU. Even a non-qualified seal cannot be denied legal effect or be refused as evidence in legal proceedings solely because it is electronic or does not meet the requirements for a qualified seal.

Under eIDAS 2.0, electronic seals also underpin the EUDI Wallet ecosystem: issuers use seals to sign electronic attestations of attributes and to prove issuer authenticity, so relying parties can trust the data source.