A digital signature in electronic exchange of information provides the same kind of facilities that are expected from a handwritten signature in paper-based mail. Hence it is applicable to providing entity authentication, data origin authentication, non-repudiation, and integrity of data.

ISO/IEC 9796-3:2006 specifies digital signature mechanisms giving partial or total message recovery aiming at reducing storage and transmission overhead.

ISO/IEC 9796-3:2006 specifies mechanisms based on the discrete logarithm problem of a finite field or an elliptic curve over a finite field.

ISO/IEC 9796-3:2006 defines types of redundancy: natural redundancy, added redundancy, or both.

ISO/IEC 9796-3:2006 gives the general model for digital signatures giving partial or total message recovery aiming at reducing storage and transmission overhead.

ISO/IEC 9796-3:2006 specifies six digital signature schemes giving data recovery: NR, ECNR, ECMR, ECAO, ECPV, and ECKNR. NR is defined on a prime field; ECNR, ECMR, ECAO, ECPV, and ECKNR are defined on an elliptic curve over a finite field.