Enhancing Document Authenticity with QR Codes and ECC-Based Digital Signatures

Handwritten signatures are commonly used to validate the authenticity of documents. In the digital realm, cryptographic signatures, known as digital signatures, provide integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. This paper explores the utilization of the Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) and Quick Response (QR) code technology for document authentication. The proposed system replaces conventional signatures with QR codes containing digital signatures, enabling the verification and validation of documents. Performance evaluation of EdDSA and the more commonly used Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) reveals that EdDSA surpasses ECDSA in key generation, signature generation, and signature verification. EdDSA demonstrates better efficiency, shorter execution times, and lower sensitivity to the execution count, resulting in an average improvement in speed of approximately 98.17% compared to ECDSA. The findings highlight the practical feasibility and superiority of EdDSA for secure and efficient document authentication using QR codes.