Professional with Presence, $449 a month
The difference between your key and you.
Every record at every plan is signed by a key held on your machine. A key does not know who is holding it.
A key does not know
A script left running overnight can issue a thousand records, and nothing on any of them separates that from you sitting at your desk.
One more fact
Presence puts one more fact on the record: that a person was at this machine and passed its own check at the moment of signing.
What happens
What happens.
Your Mac’s Touch ID sensor, or Windows Hello on a PC, is a small piece of hardware with its own key that never leaves the device. You enrol it once. From then on, the software builds your record first, takes a fingerprint of that record, and hands that fingerprint to the sensor as the question to answer. The sensor answers only after the device’s own user check passes.
The sensor answered for this record and no other
The request came from your own machine, not a web page
The answer was made for this application
The device reported its user check satisfied
The signature matches the sensor you enrolled
If any one fails, no record is issued.
What “user check” means, exactly
The device’s own check passed. The device does not report which check it was: it can be a fingerprint, a face, or the device’s PIN. The record says so in those words, and the free verifier prints it.
What it establishes
The enrolled sensor on this machine answered for this exact record, and its user check passed at that moment. The answer cannot be lifted onto a different record, because the record’s own fingerprint was the question.
What it establishes
- A person was at this machine
- They passed the device’s own check at the moment of signing
- The answer was for this exact record and no other
What it leaves open
- It does not establish who the person was; the name is still your declaration
- It does not say which check it was
- It does not say the person read the work. Presence is not attention.
When it matters
Eighteen months from now.
A matter goes wrong eighteen months from now. The question is not whether the file changed, which every plan answers. It is whether you signed off, or whether someone issued it under your login while you were away.
On Professional the record says a key signed. On Presence it says a person at that machine passed its check at that second, and the other side can check that without asking you anything.