EchoSign is now accepting Facebook and LinkedIn log-ins as identity verification for its electronic signature technology.

The technology lets you sign documents electronically, ending the need for fax machines and couriers. Corporate customers include Dell, BT, Google, Facebook, OpenTable, Groupon, Intuit, Delta, Orange, Aetna, Time Warner Cable, Qualcomm, Citrix, Symantec and Netsuite.

Now you can verify your identity and sign by connecting with Facebook. EchoSign believes this is even more secure than a regular pen-and-paper signature, because of the ability to use your web identity to enhance the authentication of business web transactions.

“With fax or paper signatures, there is little way to show identity other than the signature itself – which the recent robo-signing scandal in the mortgage industry has shown has a large number of analog holes,” a company statement says.

“But web signatures can now go much, much further – for the first time, add a permanent record of your social graph to your signature. Your social graph is automatically captured by EchoSign and attached to PDF copies of every signed contract, along with your email address, IP address, signature image, and chronological transaction history.”

However, I do wonder if the security of the systems might be compromised by the recent spate of hacking and spam on Facebook. Also, there seems some scope for forging signatures on shared computers. Then again, the traditional written signature isn’t foolproof either.

We’ve embedded a video from EchoSign below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBZ9KfOB804