Industry-First E-Signature Feature Added to 'Discuss E-Sign'

Overview NTT Advanced Technology Corporation (NTT-AT, Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President: Tadashi Ito) announced that it will launch a new feature for 'Discuss E-Sign®,' its e-signature service for local assemblies provided as part of the 'Discuss® series,' on May 22, 2026. This feature allows electronic signatures on various documents to be completed by only the consenting members and also supports the signing of petitions.

Background Following the revision of the Local Autonomy Act in April 2024, the digitalization of parliamentary procedures has progressed, enabling tasks such as the approval of parliamentary meeting records and the submission of petitions to be handled in the cloud. While NTT-AT has provided 'Discuss E-Sign' to meet these needs, conventional features required signatories and the order of signing to be determined beforehand, limiting its use for documents like petitions. To resolve this, a new feature allowing only consenting members to sign was developed.

New Feature Highlights With the newly implemented feature, signature requests can be sent to all members at once without considering the signing order. Even if some members decline to sign, the electronic signature process can be finalized as long as at least one member signs. This reduces the administrative burden and costs by eliminating the need for advance coordination with signatories by the secretariat. This is the industry's first parliamentary e-signature service that allows signatures to be finalized by only consenting members.

Service Features 1. Fully compliant with the Electronic Signature Law, incorporating 'CloudSign,' which has the top share in local government adoption. 2. Workflow design tailored to the operations of parliamentary secretariats. 3. Meets strict information management requirements for official parliamentary meeting records. 4. New petition signature support feature. 5. Intuitive operation available via PC, tablet, and smartphone. 6. Secure long-term data preservation in the cloud to reduce loss risks.

Future Outlook The Discuss series supports the realization of ICT-enabled local government assemblies, with over 800 installations to date. NTT-AT continues to promote council DX through its various systems.