What is the legal status of electronic signatures?

Can a click of a button constitute a valid contract?

Source: Zania Musson and Dylan Buttrick, Candidate Attorneys Corporate, Mergers & Acquisitions, Denys Reitz, Johannesburg.

If an individual merely clicks or accepts contract terms over the internet, does this constitute a legally binding contract between the parties?
 
According to the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002, it does. As a starting point, the Act provides that information will not be without legal force merely because it is wholly or partly in the form of a data message. A data message is data that is generated, sent, received or stored by electronic means. A data message will meet the legal requirement that a document must be in writing if it is “accessible in a manner usable for subsequent reference”. For instance, if you can save it, or print it, it complies. Webpages and emails (and their attachments) are therefore now legally recognised as the modern equivalent of paper documents.
 
The Act further provides that “an electronic signature is not without legal force and effect merely on the grounds that it is in electronic form”. Therefore, where a signature is required to form a binding contract and the parties have not agreed on the type of electronic signature to be used, an electronic signature that uses a reliable method to identify the person and indicate their approval of the information provided, will be regarded as the “signature” of the contracting party. If the parties use an “advanced electronic signature”, such signature will be presumed valid unless the contrary is proved. An advanced electronic signature is one which results from a process that has been accredited by the South African Department of Communications.
 
Lastly, an agreement concluded between parties by means of data messages is concluded at the time when and place where the acceptance of the offer is received by the offeror wherever that may be. Therefore, where a person clicks or agrees to the terms and conditions on a website, they can not subsequently claim that they are not bound to these terms in a sent message. Once they have accessed and accepted the offer and such acceptance is accessible to the offeror, an agreement is concluded and is regarded by South African law to be binding. Once the terms and conditions have been accepted and so communicated, the offeror need not acknowledge acceptance.
 
There can therefore no longer be any doubt that the ticking of the Terms and Conditions box on a webpage can constitute a binding contract capable of enforcement in a court of law.