Question Mark in a Digital Signature: How to Remove It

Download your e-Aadhaar, a birth certificate, an income certificate or an e-PAN, open it, and there it is: a yellow question mark in the signature box with "Signature Not Verified" beside it. Open the same file in Adobe Reader and it says "Validity Unknown". Many of the people who find SignValid, the free signature validator I built for Indian documents, arrive searching for how to remove it.

The honest answer has two parts. You cannot remove the question mark from the original file without breaking its signature. What you can do is check the signature properly and get a copy that shows the green tick in its place, on any phone, in any browser and on paper. This post explains why the question mark is there, why it is not a bad sign, and how to get that green tick.

Why there is a question mark in the digital signature#

The signature box on a government PDF looks like a stamp, but it is really a small layered picture: a symbol, the signer's name and a status line. The portal that issued your document saved that picture in its "not checked yet" state, the yellow question mark, because it cannot know which viewer will open the file later or whether that viewer will finish the check.

So the question mark is not a warning your phone came up with. It is part of the document, exactly like the text and the logo. What you see then depends on where you open the file:

• Your phone's PDF viewer, Chrome, Google Drive and the preview inside messaging apps draw the picture as it is stored, so they always show the question mark. They do not check the signature at all.
• Printouts always show the question mark, because paper gets the stored picture.
• Adobe Reader checks the signature and swaps the picture while the file is open. But its list of trusted certificate authorities does not include India's root, run by the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA), so on most computers it cannot finish the check and shows "Validity Unknown".

SignValid has a longer explanation of why the question mark is drawn inside the PDF, if you want the details.

Is a question mark a bad sign?#

No. The question mark means "nobody has checked this yet", not "this is fake". It appears on every genuine e-Aadhaar and every genuine e-District certificate, and it would appear just as happily on a forged one. A red cross with "Signature Invalid" in Adobe Reader is a different message: the check ran and failed, very often because the file was saved again after it was signed. The yellow question mark only says that no check has finished.

The flip side matters too: a green tick that is simply drawn on a page proves nothing either. Anyone can draw a tick on a forged document in a PDF editor. Only reading the signature data inside the file tells a genuine document from a fake one.

How to remove the question mark: get a verified copy with the green tick#

This is what SignValid does, and it takes a few seconds:

1. Open www.signvalid.in in any browser, on a laptop or a phone. Nothing to install, no account.
2. Choose the original PDF, exactly as you downloaded it from the portal or DigiLocker. Not a scan, a screenshot or a copy you have edited and saved.
3. Enter the password if it has one. For e-Aadhaar it is the first four letters of your name in capitals, followed by your year of birth.
4. Press Validate. SignValid checks that the file has not changed since it was signed, that the signer's certificate leads up to India's CCA root through a licensed certifying authority, and that the certificate had not been withdrawn when the document was signed.
5. Download the verified copy. If every check passes, the preview turns from the question mark to a green tick with "Signature valid", the way Adobe Reader shows a validated signature, and the download is that copy.

The tick is drawn only when the check really passed. A document that fails gets a report saying what went wrong, and no copy. There is no way to buy or ask for a tick on a document that does not pass.

Keep the original as well. The verified copy is a display copy: it shows the result everywhere, but it carries no signature of its own. When an office asks for "the digitally signed document", send the original download; when someone only looks at the page, such as a landlord, a college admissions desk or an office counter, the verified copy saves you the explanation.

Why you cannot just edit the question mark out#

A digital signature covers the exact bytes of the file. Any app that changes the picture in the signature box has to save the file again, and a re-saved file can no longer be checked by anyone: the signature still sits inside it, but it no longer matches what is around it. You would swap a harmless question mark for a document that fails every proper check.

The same goes for the tricks people try with good intentions: printing to PDF, opening the file in Chrome and saving it, compressing it, or running it through a password-removal site. All of them write a new file. If you have already done one of these, download a fresh copy from the portal before you check it.

The question mark on common documents#

e-Aadhaar#

Every e-Aadhaar downloaded from UIDAI carries the question mark, because it is a signed PDF like any other. It validates normally once you enter its password, and SignValid's page on the e-Aadhaar signature covers its details. e-Aadhaar is also the document people check most on SignValid: 21,899 checks by 14 October 2026. If you would rather not upload it anywhere, the Secure QR code on the e-Aadhaar can be read with UIDAI's own Aadhaar QR scanner.

Birth and death certificates#

Certificates from the Civil Registration System and from state portals such as Tamil Nadu's e-District are signed the same way. SignValid has pages for CRS birth and death certificates and for the Tamil Nadu birth certificate.

Community, income and other state certificates#

Tamil Nadu's community, income, nativity and residence certificates have all been checked with real samples, and SignValid lists the certificate portals of every other state and union territory with what is known about each.

e-PAN and GST certificates#

The e-PAN from the Income Tax Department and the GST registration certificate show the same question mark and validate the same way.

When the question mark will not go away#

Sometimes the check does not pass, and the green tick does not appear. The usual reasons, in the order I see them:

• The file was re-saved or compressed. The signature is still there but can no longer be checked. Download a fresh copy from the portal and try again.
• The file is a scan or a photo. There is no signature in it to check. Go back to the digital original.
• Validity unknown on a fresh government download. The portal may have started signing under a certifying authority SignValid has not added yet. That is my job to fix, so report it.

My other post on how to validate a signature in a PDF walks through every result and what to do about each.

What the question mark means, in Hindi and Tamil#

In Hindi, "Signature Not Verified" is "हस्ताक्षर सत्यापित नहीं" and "Validity Unknown" is "वैधता अज्ञात". In Tamil they are "கையொப்பம் சரிபார்க்கப்படவில்லை" and "செல்லுபடித்தன்மை தெரியவில்லை". In every language the meaning is the same: the check has not been done yet. It does not say that the document is fake.

Frequently asked questions#

Will the person I send the document to see the green tick?#

Only if you send them the verified copy. The original file stores the question mark, so their phone or browser shows it, and Adobe Reader on their computer shows "Validity Unknown" too.

Can I remove the question mark on my phone?#

Yes. Open signvalid.in in your phone's browser, choose the file from your Downloads, validate it and download the verified copy. The steps are the same as on a laptop.

Is SignValid free?#

Yes. It is paid for by Google ads, which never see your documents, and files are checked in memory and not kept. There is a fair-use limit of 30 checks per 10 minutes per browser.

Does SignValid change my original file?#

No. Your original stays exactly as it was on your phone or computer. SignValid gives you a second file, the verified copy, beside it.