A digital signature is an electronic analogue of a written signature; the digital signature can be used to provide assurance that the claimed signatory signed the information. In addition, a digital signature may be used to detect whether or not the information was modified after it was signed (i.e., to detect the integrity of the signed data). Each signatory has a public and private key and is the owner of that key pair. The private key is used by the owner to generate a digital signature; the public key is used in the signature verification process.