Online Notary Ensures Security And Authenticity Of Legal Documents
Law

How Remote Online Notary Ensures Security & Authenticity Of Legal Documents

August 14, 2023

Many states with RON laws have specific guidelines and requirements for the service. For example, New York requires a digital certificate and journal.

Using secure identity-proofing technologies, RON eliminates the need for physical meetings and ensures signers are who they say they are. The process involves the following:

Secured Video Conferencing

With a robust white-label platform, notaries can quickly and easily connect with signers via a video conference. It gives both parties a fast, efficient, and high-quality signing experience. It also lets the sender verify that signers have the technology, equipment,, and time necessary to participate in a live notarial session.

The platform supports a variety of documents for different types of transactions, including real estate, mortgages, business agreements, and power of attorney documents. It also offers credential analysis and identity proofing, a process that validates an individual’s government-issued ID by using a comprehensive review of public and proprietary data sources.

In addition, the remote online notary platform ensures document integrity with embeddable e-signatures that are both time and date stamped. It helps to satisfy audit trail requirements and transparency regulations. It also helps reduce costs and provides greater efficiency while ensuring compliance with the latest regulations. Thanks to the platform’s secure end-to-end process, it is possible to include security measures like credential analysis and KBA.

Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA)

Many online applications require users to answer security questions as part of a verification process. These are often personal, such as what city they were born in or the name of their first pet, and can be difficult for someone to guess without direct knowledge of the user’s information. Enterprises must be careful about their questions to avoid being too intrusive and irritating to their customers.

Static KBA uses predetermined questions selected during account registration and requires the signer to provide answers when prompted for verification. While these questions can be a great security measure, they can become annoying for the signer to answer repeatedly when reaccessing the system.

The solution is dynamic KBA, which enables the signer to be challenged with unique questions. Queries from public and private databases generate these questions and may include the names of family members, their current address, or an alternative name they go by.

Verification Of Signer’s ID Document

The process of verifying the identity of a document signer in an online signing session is called ID verification. This step helps prevent fraud and enhances the trustworthiness of a digital signature.

It typically includes a dynamic knowledge-based authentication (KBA) quiz, where the notary asks questions to which only someone familiar with the signer’s personal history would know the answers. In addition to KBA, the notary may use additional remote identity verification methods like photo scanning, eID credential analysis, or a verified government-issued ID document scan.

To perform a RON, notaries must meet their state’s statutory requirements for e-notarization, which vary by state. Typical requirements include training as a traditional notary and RON-specific training. Notaries should always review their state’s laws regarding RON to ensure they are current with the latest rules and regulations.

Recording

During a RON session, the notary and signer can see, hear and speak to one another via a live audio-video call. RON platforms also enable the notary to apply their digital seal via a click, replacing the hand-held embosser or stamp that was once standard in the industry.

The platform can verify the signer’s identity using public and proprietary databases through credential analysis to ensure their proffered ID document is authentic and unaltered. It helps prevent fraudulent identification documents and enhances the security of the process.

The record of the notarial act is also recorded for quality assurance and legal purposes. It can help mitigate the risk of fraud or coercion, a growing concern in the mortgage and real estate sectors as elder abuse and financial exploitation cases rise. A video recording can help prove that a signer acted of their own free will and not under coercion. Unlike journal entries in traditional interactions, this tamper-evident electronic recording can be used to prove what happened during a notarization.

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