Digital age sees traditional signature dying out

With the digital revolution came pin numbers, passwords and fingerprints – and the traditional signature is dying out says recent research.

Our signature is our name written in a distinctive way as a form of identification, but it seems the days of the carefully honed personal signature are coming to an end!

According a national study by UK cyber security consultancy –  Online Spy Shop – more than half of adults rarely sign their names anymore and one in five don’t even have a proper signature, instead just writing out their name when one is required and potentially leaving themselves open to the risk of identity theft and fraud.

The national study of 1,000 UK adults found:

* 55% of say they “rarely” use their signature

* One in five UK don’t have a consistent signature

* 15% of under-24s can’t remember the last time they signed their name

* Four in ten signatures written in the UK are to sign for deliveries

On the whole, 20% sign their name so infrequently nowadays that they admit to not being able to produce a consistent signature.

Younger people are even less inclined to bother.  21% of those aged 18-24 say they don’t have a consistent way of signing their name and 15% can’t remember the last time they had to do it.