Ensure that digital identity authentication matches the recipient name and email the sender intends.
Overview
Digital Identities provide a solid method to verify who applies a signature based on their ability to authenticate to a trusted identity provider. However, the digital identity process occurs in a secure session between the signer and the identity provider (outside the Acrobat Sign environment). This means that the digital identity alone does not guarantee that the recipient is the exact intended email for which the sender configured the agreement.
The Identity Check policy allows for Digital Identities to match the name and email address configured by the sender to the name and email values associated with the Digital identity provider's records. this directly ties who the sender configured the agreement for to the authentication of the user. Additionally, the identity check can allow for alternate emails, as listed in the Identity Provider's records, and alternate or partial name values to accommodate how names might be communicated.
The Identity Check policy can be configured to be:
- Disabled - The sender cannot enable the Identity Check.
- Required - The Identity Check is automatically enabled for all recipients that have a Digital Identity authentication method. The sender can still enable other elements of the identity check.
- Allowed - The sender must configure the individual recipients to have a digital ID authentication method, and then enable the individual check policies and their respective elements.
Availability:
The Identity Check policy is available for enterprise license plans.
Configuration scope:
The feature can be enabled at the account and group levels.
How it's used
Senders
When the Identity Check policy is Required or Allowed, the sender must configure the recipient to use a Digital Identity Provider (IdP) as their authentication method and then configure which elements of the identity check they want to enforce. These values are checked against the IdP's record for the recipient, and authentication is based on passing acceptable values to the IdP.
When Recipient Name checking is enabled, the sender must provide one or more name values that will be accepted by the IdP.
The sender can configure only one IdP for the authentication process.
If the recipient does not have their identity in place with the selected IdP, they must either create a new identity or the sender must change their authentication method.
Recipients
Recipient authentication starts with a challenge page that is slightly modified based on how the Indetity Check Policy is configured.
In all cases, an identity verification page is presented with instructions on what the recipient must do and a Verify Identity button that opens the session to the IdP.
The email address of the sender is provided on the challenge page in the event that the recipient has an issue completing the authentication process.
When identity checking is disabled, the recipient is only asked to authenticate to the configured IdP by selecting the Verify Identity button.
As long as they can successfully authenticate to the IdP, the Acrobat Sign authentication process will pass, and the recipient gains access to the agreement.
When identity checking is required, and alternate emails are not allowed, the verification challenge page explicitly identifies which email address must be used when authenticating to the IdP.
Any other email address will fail the process.
When authenticating is required and alternate emails are allowed, the challenge page explicitly calls out that alternative emails are permitted and provides the email address that the sender configured so the recipient can understand what the process requires.
Any email address understood by the IdP to be associated with the email address provided by the sender will pass the Acrobat Sign authentication test and allow access to the agreement.
When name validation is enabled for the recipient, the list of acceptable name values is provided. Only the provided name values will be acceptable.
An option exists to allow for partial name matching, which employs logic to understand what partial names are likely (Dave instead of David, for example). The partial name-matching logic also accounts for non-English characters (e.g. diacritics) that are situationally replaced with English characters. For example, the acute accent (á), grave accent (à), and umlaut (ä) could be included in scope if the English "a" character is used.
When a recipient fails to authenticate to the IdP, the challenge page refreshes and displays red warning text to draw attention to the issue.
The number of attempts remaining is clearly stated along with a warning that the agreement will be canceled if the recipient fails more than the maximum number of attempts.
Automatic cancellation when attempts exceed the maximum
When a recipient fails to authenticate to the IdP more than is allowed, the agreement is automatically canceled.
A red banner is displayed informing the recipient of the cancellation and instructing the recipient to contact the sender. The sender's email address is provided.
The configurable options are:
- Disabled - When disabled, the recipient passes the Acrobat Sign authentication by successfully authenticating to the identity provider (without requiring an association to the email address as configured by the sender).
- If a digital identity authentication method is selected, the sender does not have the option to add the identity check.
- Required - Requiring an email identity check provides the email address entered by the sender to the identity provider and requires that the primary verified email address match that email address.
- When the Required option is selected and the recipient has a digital identity set as their authentication method, the recipient settings automatically enable the setting to apply email matching, and the sender has no option to unselect it.
- If alternate email addresses are not permitted, then only the primary email address (as identified by the IdP) passes the identity check.
- Allowed - When the Allowed option is selected, it is incumbent on the sender to enable the identity check (after selecting the digital identity provider as the authentication method) and select the elements of the check to be applied for each recipient that should have the check applied.
- If alternate email addresses are not permitted, then only the primary email address (as identified by the IdP) passes the identity check.
- Allow alternative email addresses matching - When enabled, the sender has two additional options they can configure:
- Allow registered alternative email addresses - When enabled, the recipient passes the identity check if the email address configured by the sender is either the primary email or an alternate email address in the identity provider's records.
- Not all IdPs allow alternate email addresses as an option.
- Allow custom alternative email addresses - When enabled, the sender can enter one or more email values that will be acceptable as the email address value.
- Allow registered alternative email addresses - When enabled, the recipient passes the identity check if the email address configured by the sender is either the primary email or an alternate email address in the identity provider's records.
- Disabled - When disabled, the recipient passes the Acrobat Sign authentication by successfully authenticating to the identity provider (without requiring an association to the recipeint's name as configured by the sender). If a digital identity authentication method is selected, the sender does not have the option to add the identity check.
- Required - Requiring a name check requires the sender to enter one or more name values that must match the name value of the identity provider's records.
- When the Required option is selected and the recipient has a digital identity set as their authentication method, the recipient settings automatically enable the setting to apply name matching, and the sender has no option to unselect it.
- The sender must supply at least one name value. Multiple values can be provided in a comma-separated format.
- Allowed - When the Allowed option is selected, it is incumbent on the sender to enable the identity check (after selecting the digital identity provider as the authentication method) and select the elements of the check to be applied for each recipient that should have the check applied.
- The sender must supply at least one name value. Multiple values can be provided in comma-separated format.
- Allow partial Name matching - When enabled, an additional setting is available to the sender:
- Allow partial name matching - When enabled, partial name matching allows commonly used name derivatives to be used instead of the literal name string (allowing Dave instead of David for example).
- Additionally, the use of diacritics can be understood as a common English analog. For example, the acute accent (á), grave accent (à), and umlaut (ä) could be included in scope if the English "a" character is used.
- Allow partial name matching - When enabled, partial name matching allows commonly used name derivatives to be used instead of the literal name string (allowing Dave instead of David for example).
Audit Report and Activity logs
All successful authentications provide the same information to the Audit Report, including:
- The name and email address of the recipient
- The identity provider
- A reference ID
- A verification date
The Activity log records a more concise record, identifying only that the identity verification passed.
It is not noted if an alternate email address is used for the verification, only the successful attempt is recorded.
Identity failure happens when a recipient fails to successfully authenticate with the identity provider more than three times.
When this happens, the Audit Report clearly indicates:
- Which recipient failed the authentication process
- The IdP used in the authentication attempt
- The message that the document was canceled due to a failure to authenticate within the maximum number of tries
The Activity log contains a more concise description identifying that the recipient failed to verify their identity beyond the maximum number of attempts.
Best practices
If your business practice requires that the signing party be the same as the party the agreement is sent to, and you are using digital identities for authentication, it's recommended to set the Recipient Email address matching to Required.
Unless you have a strong business reason to restrict the recipient to using an email explicitly tied to the primary verified email address at the identity provider, allowing alternate email values is recommended.
Recipient Name matching will depend on how critical an exact name value is to your internal process. In general, names have considerably more variability, so if names are to be matched, it's generally recommended to allow partial name matching.
