⚠️ Important notice
This is not a government website. Certificado Digital Global is a Registration Authority accredited to the Certisign network, a brand of Kindness in Business Consulting Ltd (UK Company No. 10386293), serving clients from London. Issuance depends on identity validation, documentation and ICP-Brasil rules. Do not send CPF, passport or sensitive documents via WhatsApp or the initial form.
O que é
People ask for “a digital signature” when they need a certificate, and buy “a certificate” believing it already is the signature. The two concepts complete each other but are not the same — and mixing them up leads to…
Para quem
Explained without legalese · Grounded in Law 14.063/2020 and MP 2.200-2
Como resolve
Guidance on your first signature · RA accredited to AC Certisign
Limite
Não é site do governo. Emissão sujeita a validação de identidade, documentação e normas da ICP-Brasil.
An analogy before the definitions
Think of a pen and your initials. The initials are the gesture you make on paper; the pen is the instrument that makes it possible. Nobody confuses the two — yet in the digital world the confusion is constant. A digital signature is the gesture: the act of applying, over a file, a mathematical code generated with your private key. The ICP-Brasil certificate is the pen: the file (or token, or cloud vault) that holds that key and binds it to your name and CPF, after a Registration Authority has checked who you are. Without a certificate there is no qualified digital signature; and a certificate that never signs anything is just a stored credential.
The certificate is an identity
It answers the question “who is this person?”. It is issued once, lasts for a term (one year for A1, up to three for A3) and serves both for signing and for logging into systems such as e-CAC, gov.br at gold level or PJe.
The signature is an act
It answers the question “did this person agree to this document, and is the document still the same?”. It happens with every signed file, leaves a verifiable record inside the PDF or in a .p7s, and stops validating if anyone changes the content afterwards.
Electronic signature vs digital signature
Here lies the second confusion. “Electronic signature” is the genus: any way of expressing agreement by electronic means, from clicking “I accept” to gov.br's biometrics. “Digital signature” is the strongest species within that genus: the one using public-key cryptography with a certificate. Law 14.063/2020 organised this into three levels — simple, advanced and qualified — and reserved the name “qualified” for the signature made with an ICP-Brasil certificate. gov.br, for instance, produces an advanced signature; it serves many acts, but not those the law reserves for the qualified one.
Example
Click-to-accept, SMS code · gov.br, platforms with their own validation · Signature with an ICP-Brasil certificate (e-CPF or e-CNPJ)
Needs a certificate?
No · No · Yes — that is what defines it
Legal presumption of authorship
No · No · Yes, under art. 10 §1 of MP 2.200-2/2001
Where it is required
Low-risk acts · Most digital public services · Acts the law reserves for the qualified level, such as property transfers registered at a notary, and systems that only accept certificates
Works from abroad?
Yes · Depends on gov.br's facial validation, which fails for many outside Brazil · Yes, from any country, as long as the certificate is installed
Scenario: the “digital signature” the notary would not accept
I want the qualified signature
Real case
Illustrative scenario. A Brazilian humanitarian project coordinator lives in Addis Ababa and needed to sign the deed donating a family plot in Uberlândia to her sister. The notary asked for “the parties' digital signature through e-Notariado”. She understood that her gov.br signature, which she already used to check INSS, would do, and lost two weeks trying to complete the act with it — until the notary's office explained that e-Notariado required a certificate. On WhatsApp she finally grasped the distinction: gov.br is an advanced signature; the act required the qualified one, which only exists with an ICP-Brasil certificate. She issued a cloud e-CPF A3 through video validation, installed the app on her phone and signed the deed in the session with the notary, with her sister present in Uberlândia. — A typical case of someone who already uses gov.br and discovers its limit at a notary
Before you decide
“I'm in an impossible time zone”
Identity validation is booked with our team in London; from Addis Ababa to Kuala Lumpur there are slots that overlap with your day. Tell us the city and we send options.
“My Brazilian document has expired”
For validation, a valid Brazilian passport, RG or CNH within its term will do. If you only hold expired documents, we advise which to renew first — usually the passport, through the consulate.
“Who guarantees nobody signs on my behalf?”
The private key is generated and stays with you; the RA knows no password and holds no copy. Lose the password and you revoke and issue another — there is no recovery, and that is a protection, not a flaw.
“Isn't it cheaper to sign by hand on a visit to Brazil?”
A deed, a contract and a power of attorney over a year add up to more trips than a certificate costs. And the qualified signature is valid in all of them, from wherever you are.
Transparent pricing
The price covers the e-CPF certificate — the “pen”. Every signature made with it, on any number of documents, carries no extra charge throughout its validity.
Starting point; the total varies between A1 and A3 and with the validity period. Confirm before issuing.
Issue my e-CPF