Protecting your RPEQ signature in a digital world

A RPEQ’s signature is something of significant professional and personal value. It may be used to confirm that professional engineering services have been done by or directly supervised by a RPEQ, or even required under certain rules and regulations to ‘certify’ works and services.

‘In the old days’, long before the current coronavirus crisis, it was easy to request a wet signature on a document. In the current situation it may not be possible to obtain a wet ink signature on a document and technology may even make doing so unnecessary. Whilst there are several current electronic processes that internally certify a document, externally this is fairly easy to get around and have a document falsely authorised by someone, in this case a RPEQ.

This environment means that we must be more rigorous in our approach to signatures. If you want to be assured that the signature is genuine, the best way is to contact the signatory directly.

So how does a RPEQ protect that all important signature? A very good question and I would love to have the perfect solution. Unfortunately, there will always be the risk of someone taking a RPEQ’s signature and misusing it. However, there are some things that we as professionals can do to at least minimise the risk of fraudulent use of our RPEQ signatures:

• Have a different signature for signing as a RPEQ, coupled with your RPEQ number, as opposed to your normal usage
• Keep a register of when you use your signature (this allows you to be able to quickly confirm the authenticity of a document)
• Do not allow others to place your signature on a document
• If you have a digital signature in the workplace, ensure that it is removed from the company system when you leave

Misuse of a RPEQ’s digital signature may equate to a breach of the Professional Engineers Act or the Code of Practice for RPEQs; and just as seriously may be an act of fraud. The Board should be informed if a RPEQ believes their signature has been used without their authorisation. The Board has investigated a number of cases recently that involved the unauthorised use of a RPEQ’s digital signature to suggest that a drawing had been done by that RPEQ. This is the most common – along with alterations being done to designs and keeping the original signature – situation involving misuse of a RPEQ’s signature that the Board encounters.

Ultimately, RPEQs have the responsibility to demonstrate when it is their authorised signature. A record of when they use their signature is one way of doing this. The other is to encourage people to contact the signatory and check to see if the signature was correctly applied.

For more information on protecting you RPEQ signature see articles in BPEQ e-news issues in January 2018 and May 2018.