These are the terms and conditions for using KuduDoc, wherever you live. Before you rely on a seal, read section 4. Before you sign, read section 5.
Read the 9 sectionsKuduDoc is a platform for important documents, built in South Africa and open to people in every country. It helps you sign, seal, keep, watch, ask and share the records you hold. These terms cover all three KuduDoc sites (kududoc.com, kududoc.com/eu and kududoc.co.za), the app, the signing service, the PDF tools and the public checker.
“KuduDoc”, “we” and “us” mean Kududoc (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa with registration number 2026/654909/07, which operates the service. Our postal address and how we handle personal information are in the privacy notice. “You” means the person or organisation using it. If you accept these terms on behalf of a company, you are confirming you are authorised to do that.
Anyone, in any country, can open a KuduDoc account. You must be 18 or over. You need an account to send, sign, keep and share documents and to use the PDF tools. You do not need one to check a sealed file on the public checker.
People you send a document to sign it, or open your shared copy, with a free KuduDoc account.
Protect your account with a passkey or two-factor sign-in. If you find a security issue, write to security@kududoc.co.za.
Your ordinary documents, stored, rendered and sealed to run the service.
A separately encrypted space, one per person, with its own passphrase and recovery key. Set up recovery first: if both the passphrase and the recovery key are lost, the contents cannot be recovered.
With your consent, your question and the relevant passages go to Google’s Vertex AI service, in Google’s EU region, to write a cited answer. Ask never reads the Vault. AI can misread a document — read the source.
Share a document with a chosen recipient, view-only or with download, and withdraw future access when you are done. Withdrawing access cannot recall a copy already downloaded.
On Family, name trusted people who can request access to your ordinary documents. You set the rules and the waiting time, and you can cancel any request or block someone. The Vault is never included. How emergency access rules work
Export your data, or ask for it to be deleted; a person at KuduDoc approves each deletion. Deleting a document does not withdraw its completed public timestamp.
Your documents stay yours. You are responsible for what you upload and send, and for having the right to keep and share other people’s information in it. We handle that information on your behalf, as the privacy notice explains.
When every party finishes signing, we apply a certification signature to the PDF, record a SHA-256 fingerprint of the completed file, and anchor that fingerprint with OpenTimestamps. Together we call that the seal.
How a completed file is sealed
Our certification certificate is issued by a certificate authority on Adobe’s Approved Trust List, so Adobe Acrobat and Reader show a sealed file as certified by KuduDoc. A reader without Adobe’s trust list, or a file sealed before we moved to this certificate, may show the validity as unknown; that is about the reader’s trust list, not about whether the file has changed. To check a file, use the public checker. About the seal’s certificate
KuduDoc gives you the signature and the evidence: who was asked to sign, when they opened and signed, the activity record and the sealed file. Whether a signature is valid for a particular document is decided by the law that governs that document, not by KuduDoc. KuduDoc signatures are simple electronic signatures. KuduDoc does not offer qualified electronic signatures under the EU’s eIDAS Regulation, or advanced electronic signatures under South Africa’s ECT Act.
The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 recognises data messages and electronic signatures. A KuduDoc signature is an ordinary electronic signature under the Act, captured with consent and intent, and backed by an activity record and a seal.
Under the eIDAS Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, Article 25, an electronic signature cannot be refused legal effect, or as evidence in court, only because it is electronic. Only a qualified electronic signature has, by law, the same effect as a handwritten one. A KuduDoc signature is not qualified, and national law decides which documents need a qualified signature or ink.
The Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the UK’s retained eIDAS rules let electronic signatures be used as evidence, and English law generally accepts them for contracts. Some documents, such as wills, still need ink.
The federal ESIGN Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, as each state adopted it, say a signature or contract cannot be denied legal effect only because it is electronic. They leave out some documents, such as wills, codicils and testamentary trusts, many family-law matters, and certain court papers and notices. If a law requires you to give a consumer information in writing, ESIGN sets consent steps of its own; KuduDoc does not run those steps for you.
Most countries recognise electronic signatures, each with its own exceptions. Check the law that governs your document before you rely on one.
A few documents cannot be signed electronically, or need a type of electronic signature KuduDoc does not offer. Sign these in ink.
Stay on paper
Needs an advanced electronic signature
KuduDoc checks each document before it is sent and won’t send one it recognises as a will, a sale or other alienation of land, a lease of land over 20 years, or a bill of exchange or cheque — sign those in ink; you can still seal the scan.
Notarial deeds and antenuptial contracts are different: KuduDoc points these to a notary. Check a document type →
Keep the paper original: a sealed scan does not replace it where the law requires one.
Other countries have their own lists of documents that need ink, a notary or a qualified signature. Whether a particular document is valid or enforceable depends on the document, the parties, the facts and the law that governs it. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer where you are; in South Africa, an admitted attorney.
We do not take payments yet. Nobody can be charged until they choose a paid plan and pay for it. Before we take any payment, we will publish the price, currency and payment terms for your site and ask you to agree to them at checkout.
Prices are as published on the pricing page. The prices below are those published on kududoc.co.za, in South African rand.
Documents you have already sent are not affected by a plan change. What happens when you leave is in section 8.
Support is by email, and paid plans get priority. Write to support
Export your data before you go; see section 3. A completed document keeps its seal after you leave.
Keep the completed file and its completed timestamp proof. The fingerprint comes from the file itself and the timestamp sits in OpenTimestamps, a public standard — so both can be checked independently, even without KuduDoc.
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts may hear any dispute about them.
If you use KuduDoc as a consumer — for yourself, not for a business — you keep the protection of the laws of the country where you live that cannot be excluded by agreement, and you may bring a claim in the courts of that country where its law allows. Nothing in these terms limits a right the law says cannot be limited, including your rights under South Africa’s Consumer Protection Act where it applies.
If we change these terms, we will post the new version here with its date, and tell you by email before a change that affects you takes effect.
A person on a small team reads every message and writes back.