Document authentication and signing systems just get increasingly sophisticated. Next up? Fingerprint authentication over the Sony FIU 810 Puppy device, that can confirm the person who’s reading, creating, and/or signing a document has privileges to do so.

Sony announced this week that it will jointly develop a document signing solution with TrustEra, which provides what it describes as “forensic-grade, legally admissible” e-signatures. While the “Puppy” sounds like a toy machine, these companies are hoping to appeal to such serious players as legal, medical, and corporate customers who need such strong authentication and signatures to comply with documentation regulations set forth in federal mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA legislation.

"Our solution bridges what once seemed to be an impossible gap for the adoption of true end-to-end electronic business." says Jacques Francoeur, CEO of TrustEra. "By building on the Sony FIU-810 Puppy token's capabilities, such as fingerprint authentication, true on-device matching, and secure creation and protection of the secret signing key, we will be able to create a fully provisioned and supported forensic signing solution that surpasses even two-factor authentication based signing solutions such as Smart Card and PIN."