Silanis enables first government-to-constituent e-signing.

Business Editors

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 31, 2001

Family Support Division of the Stanislaus County, CA, District

Attorney's Office is first state and local government to

automate G2C, G2B and internal processes

The Family Support Division of the Stanislaus County, CA, District Attorney's Office is initiating the first government-to-constituent (G2C) electronic signing, Silanis Technology Inc. announced today.

With the purchase of Silanis ApproveIt(R) Collaboration Server, the division is allowing its business partners and constituents to sign electronically, building on its February 2001 internal approval e-signing initiative.

By December 2001, the division will use Silanis ApproveIt(R) Collaboration Server to close government-to-business (G2B) contracts faster, and offer constituents new levels of Web-based customer service--essentially using electronic signature technology to get people out-of-line and online. The division, which assists over 40,000 families annually in establishing paternity, enforcing support orders, and collecting and distributing child support payments, will enable custodial parents to e-sign documents from a home or work computer. All an individual needs is email, a Web browser and Microsoft(R) Word or Adobe(R) Acrobat(R).

"Of the 43,000 cases we handle on an annual basis, a large percentage have access to a PC," said Ron Krasko, IT manager for the Stanislaus County DA's Office. "There are documents that parents have to sign before we can provide services, but for many parents, signing in person means taking time off work. With ApproveIt Collaboration Server, our caseworkers can email a document to a parent, and they can e-sign it and email it back. Likewise for our contractors and suppliers."

The Division also purchased ApproveIt(R) ePersona Server from Silanis to make it easy for parents and any other external party, such as contractors or suppliers, to create the personalized e-signature file (also known as an ePersona) needed to begin e-signing. Designed as a self-serve solution, the server reduces the need for IT support by automating ePersona creation and password recovery. The Division's IT staff will therefore not be asked to recreate e-signature files when users accidentally delete their file or forget their password.

Laying the groundwork

In order to begin using e-signatures externally, however, the division first had to become internally efficient. In February 2001, the division deployed ApproveIt(R) Desktop, the foundation for its e-signature initiative. Doing so enabled the division to automate a number of extremely time-consuming internal processes that now remain electronic--even when signatures are required. For example, time studies that used to take two weeks per quarter are now completed within two days. As a result, personnel spend more time servicing parents and less time managing paper.

About the Family Support Division

The District Attorney's Office in Stanislaus, California, is the largest law firm in the county and handles a wide range of state-level services, from prosecuting criminal cases to locating absent parents. The latter is carried out by the Family Support Division of the DA's office, which assists over 40,000 families annually in establishing paternity, enforcing support orders, and collecting and distributing child support payments. In 2000 alone, the division distributed an impressive $48 million in payments from obligor parents. For more information, see www.stanislaus-da.org/.

About Silanis

Founded in 1992, Silanis Technology Inc. enables people to spend less time managing paper and more time driving business forward faster and more efficiently with the ApproveIt(R) family of electronic signature products. Over 900 customers in the financial services, government, manufacturing, health and pharmaceutical sectors use ApproveIt(R) Desktop software to sign electronically. This includes the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Army MEDCOM, GMAC Commercial Mortgage, Nationwide Insurance and Dell Financial. Silanis offers ApproveIt(R) Collaboration Server for legally enforceable inter-company e-signing, as well as free, downloadable software available through its consumer division, onSign. Silanis' sales HQ is located in Washington, DC, and its R&D center in Montreal, Canada. The company also has a regional office in Campbell, CA, and sales and customer support units in other US cities, in addition to a network of value added resellers and integrators worldwide.

ApproveIt is a trademark of Silanis Technology, Inc. Other names and brands mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.