· Gokcen OZKAN
Why "Any E-Signature" Is Not Enough at Sea
Is a qualified electronic signature legally equivalent to a wet-ink signature in Türkiye?
Yes. Under Article 5 of Turkish Electronic Signature Law No. 5070, a secure (qualified) electronic signature produces the same legal effect as a handwritten signature — with statutory exceptions for instruments requiring official form. The same equivalence exists in the EU under eIDAS Article 25(2). That single sentence is the difference between a document and evidence.
Three tiers, one that survives court
Electronic signatures come in three tiers: simple (a typed name, a checkbox), advanced (cryptographically linked to the signer), and qualified — an advanced signature created with a secure signature-creation device, backed by a qualified certificate issued by a government-accredited Certificate Authority. Only the third carries statutory equivalence to wet ink. The first two may be admissible; the third shifts the burden: whoever disputes a QES must prove it invalid, not the other way around.
Maritime documents live where that difference gets tested. A charter party in a demurrage dispute. A crew employment agreement in a P&I claim. A technical management sign-off in a casualty investigation. When Port State Control or a court asks "who signed this, when, and has it changed since?" — a simple e-signature offers an argument; a QES offers a cryptographically sealed, timestamped, mathematically verifiable answer.
The standards under the hood
Maresign delivers QES workflows built on the ETSI signature families — PAdES for PDF documents, XAdES for XML data, CAdES for binary payloads — with qualified timestamps and long-term validation (LTV) so signatures remain verifiable years after the certificate expires. Documents are output in PDF/A with embedded signature integrity, which matters when a vessel changes management and the archive must still prove itself a decade later.
The certificates themselves are issued by ArkSigner, a government-accredited Certificate Authority in Türkiye, through our authorized channel partnership. Identity verification runs on biometric KYC at certificate issuance — the signer is who the certificate says, verified live, not assumed.
Where this fits maritime operations today
Crew documents and employment agreements. Charter parties and addenda. Class and flag correspondence. Supplier contracts and technical management approvals. Superyacht charter execution across three jurisdictions in one afternoon. This is what we call Digital Seaworthiness: the operational layer of maritime digitalization that is legally solid today, under law already in force — no regulatory reform required, no pilot-program asterisk.
Which documents can be signed electronically depends on document type and the relevant flag state's current position — an area moving quickly. We map this honestly per case rather than claiming blanket acceptance.
Primary sources
Law No. 5070 on Electronic Signature (Art. 5) → https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/mevzuat?MevzuatNo=5070&MevzuatTur=1&MevzuatTertip=5
eIDAS Regulation (EU) 910/2014 (Art. 25(2)) → https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02014R0910-20241018
ETSI standards (PAdES / XAdES / CAdES) → https://www.etsi.org/standards
BTK — licensed Certificate Service Providers → https://www.btk.gov.tr