NVLSlady/VA asked "More questions: So then, why is eNotary responsible for maintaining the digital record? What software is deemed suitable/reliable for this? Is there some standard "blockchain" (secure) model for the world of eNotarizations?"
Within the United States, there is no government-required or government-recognized blockchain for notarizations or notary journals, neither paper nor electronic.
Vermont recently passed legislation recognizing the concept of blockchains, and that they could, if properly implemented, be used for business records. But there is no special mention of using blockchains for notarizations.
As for the notary maintaining the digital record, I don't know about that. All I know is the requirement for a Vermont e-notary to maintain digital records won't be known until the Office of Professional Regulation issues rules, and they haven't written ANY notary rules yet. Because they have not written rules, Vermont notaries are not presently allowed to perform any kind of enotarization, neither the in-person kind nor the remote online kind.
As for "What software is deemed suitable/reliable for this?", I won't try to address keeping video records of remote signings. Just the matter of keeping an electronic notary journal is bad enough. Vermont notaries don't have to keep journals, but states that require them usually try to make it hard for a notary to make alterations to the journal, by requiring that it be bound, the pages numbered, entries to be in chronological order, etc. But it's hard to create an electronic journal that the notary can't alter after an entry is made, unless it's kept by a third party.
For example, if you kept your electronic journal in Excel, it would be trivial to insert a backdated entry.
In my opinion the most credible way to keep a notary journal of electronic notarizations is to keep it on paper. Most notaries wouldn't know how to keep a tamper-resistant electronic journal, and most people inspecting such a journal wouldn't know hot to tell if it was tamper-resistant. |
