http://www.notaries.org.uk/e-notarisation/enotarisation/electronic_notary.

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THE ELECTRONIC NOTARY

A Report by Michael Lightowler

[Council member of the Notaries' Society]

Introduction

It is time to review the progress that has been made and the progress that has
not been made towards the development of the Cyber Notary in the UK. Back in
2000 we reported progress in terms that showed how frustrated we were at the
slow progress of electronic commerce and the development of the role of the
Notary. We said then:- The worldwide discussions about the principles had pretty
much come to an end. It seems to be universally acknowledged that:(a) the use of electronic communications will advance rapidly in commerce;
(b) communications on the open internet cannot be regarded as secure;
(c) businessmen ought to want security;
(d) they do not yet appreciate the importance but rely on closed systems for
large matters and take the risk for small ones;
(e) any system to provide extra security and open systems must consist of
strong encryption within a public key infrastructure system (PKI) provided by
trusted third parties;
(f) many governments still see such systems as a threat to security;
(g) governments and their organisations are beginning to use electronic
communications for their own purposes in a number of diff erent contexts.
Having got thus far things had begun to move more slowly than had been
expected. Since then it has become clear that the Government are withdrawing
from their active promotion of reliable electronic communication between
citizens and the State although several departments are moving forward
(notably the Land Registry) and others are trying. It has also become clear that

PKI (which seemed to all of us then, and still seems to us as Notaries, to off er
the only true security) may be too diffi cult and too expensive to adopt. It has
appeared that business organisations are not yet ready to accept the risks they
take in open communications on the Internet and those who are concerned about
security are relying on closed systems (while taking inadequate precautions to
control entry to those systems).
In May 2001 we produced a statement explaining the role and place of the
Notary in electronic commerce. We set out our view that Notaries could and
should be prepared to carry out their traditional functions for the authentication
of transactions entirely electronically. We argued that Notaries were uniquely
placed to provide reliable registration authority services to the providers of
systems or of services. We warned then that there were obstacles:There are already a large number of major players in the fi eld mostly off ering
relatively low levels of certifi cation at very modest prices. To off er higher
standards at much higher fees will not necessarily appeal to a large market. The
trick which will be aligned between the commercial success and failure will
be to pitch a proper but not excessive level of security at a reasonable fee which
is proportionate to the commercial sensitivity and importance of the documents
being transmitted. Most Notaries are not at the front of electronic developments.
Whilst most are now capable of using a PC for word processing and e-mails, they
are most comfortable with the simplest of installations which they expect to
operate without expensive software support. The need will be to fi nd a platform
for the transmission of encrypted electronic documents between participating
Notaries which can be simply and cheaply installed on any PC and will
seamlessly encrypt emails and identify the sender. Whilst it is hoped that there
will, in due course, be electronic legalisation through the Foreign and
Commonwealth Offi ce, this will take a very long time as it will require
amendments to the Hague Convention and their subsequent adoption by the
diff erent countries.

Aims of the Report

The remainder of this Report attempts to do three things:-

Firstly we show that there are Notaries who are willing and able to deal with
transactions in the electronic environment and that there is in place, as a result
of the Pilot Project of Notaries for E-Commerce, a workable infrastructure (i.e.
the technology) to achieve this.
Secondly we show that Notaries are willing and able to provide registration
authority services to providers, to the public and to Government and public
authorities, either through the tradition of personal appearance and verifi cation
of documents or information, or by the disciplined scrutiny of electronically
certifi ed identity and authority.
Thirdly we show how Notaries themselves can fulfi l one of their most important
duties, the keeping of their records, in an electronic form that will incorporate
added security to the current procedures for the identifi cation of individuals, the
most immediate and important requirement in so many transactions. Notaries
will be ready to meet the demand for their services when it comes, either
because the Government once again takes seriously its own concerns about the
reliability of the information it receives and upon which its governs, or because
business concerns and individuals come to realise the risks they take in insecure
communications can be avoided. It may be that a demand and a market place
will only arise when there has been a signifi cant disaster we hope that they
will arise because the public realise that Notaries have something useful to
off er.

Part I Notaries for E-Commerce Pilot Report Introduction

In November l999 Notaries for E-Commerce (NEC) was formed as a not-for-profi t

company for the sole purpose of undertaking an E-Commerce Pilot Project for
Notaries and in order to receive funds by way of donations from Notaries to
enable it to proceed with the pilot. The Project was independent but backed by
the Notaries Society in England and Wales and also supported by the Society of

Scrivener Notaries of London and by Notaries in the Channel Islands. Its

activities were complimentary to those of Cyber Notaries UK. A contract was
signed with technology service providers, Software Box Limited, for the managed
installation and operation of a Baltimore uni-cert certifi cation authority (CA)
sited within a secure environment and using PKI technology. The managed CA
service was designed to register Notaries, issue X.509 certifi cates, revoke
certifi cates and cross certify with one other CA. NEC retained all procedural
controls of the CA operation. Software Box provided dial in access to the CA
service for a number of individual Notaries, selected from across the country,
subject to the user systems being stand alone, installed with MS Windows and
MS Outlook and having a specifi ed minimum confi guration of memory and disk
space. Software Box also provided training and user support. The project was
launched on 8 November 2002.

Management of the Project

It was recognised that project management would be diffi cult since the user
population was widely dispersed across the Country and NEC had no central
head quarters. It was decided that participating Notaries would need to be able
to commit time to project work on Wednesdays and also be able to access
technical support within their own law fi rms. The project relied heavily upon
individual Notaries taking up their own ideas with members of the Project team
as appropriate and building up discussion groups via email. Several ad hoc
meetings were held, also three steering group meetings and two teleconferences
and there has been a good deal of contact between Directors of NEC and the
Project Manager. At the time of training, Notaries were registered and issued
with digital signatures, which were then held in store on the site server to be
requested via email when needed. At the same time, Notaries equipment was
commissioned and installed with the Software Box application interface software
enabling Notaries to enter on screen relevant client information, together with
their own recording of the event being notarised and the digital signatures of
both appearers (i.e. clients) and Notaries who would complete the Notarial Act.
Initial Project work took the form of Notaries practising a simple application,

namely the witnessing of an Oath of Allegiance. This was to acquire hands on

knowledge of, and experience in, the use of the computer and to test the
procedures put in place to support the eff ective operation of the CA. The
problems identifi ed each week would govern the following weeks activity. A user
guide was produced in hard copy for each Notary and also published on the NEC
website. The Notaries initially worked in pairs in role play mode sending digitally
signed documents to each other acting as relying parties. In eff ect, each Notary
would invent a client, satisfy himself in the normal way regarding his true
identity and then electronically request Software Box to provide a digital
signature certifi cate for that appearer. This would be granted and acknowledged
by email. The Notary would then follow screen prompts allowing him to key in
the information required. This initially pertained to the Oath of Allegiance, but
later covered the range of work carried out by Notaries for clients. The Notary
would then nominally request the appearer to press the button, eff ectively
adding the appearers encoded signature to the document. The Notarys next
action would be to key in whatever comments were required to complete the
Notarial act and then add his own digital signature and seal. The document was
then emailed in encoded form to the Software Box secure site and the appearers
certifi cate revoked, since it will have been issued for a one time transaction
only.

Initial Outcome of the Pilot

Early fi ndings showed the following: Notaries are well capable of conducting Notarial business electronically and
there is widespread interest in taking forward the notion of developing a secure
electronic Notarial service for the future.
There is considerable lack of understanding outside the Notarial profession
about the function of the Notary and this ignorance in industry has contributed
to the absence in the market place of fi t for purpose products needed to be
integrated into an electronic Notarial service specifi cation without risk to the

acknowledged integrity of the profession.

The delays and diffi culties met as a direct result of under-resourcing and
under- funding the pilot have meant that the pilot objectives, specifi cally those
concerning the development of the underlying procedural infrastructures and
protocols needed to support successful CA implementation, have not been able
to be met within the planned timescale. Throughout the project close attention
was given to the relevant activity ongoing in the UK and Europe regarding the
setting of standards and legislation covering electronic signatures and qualifi ed
certifi cates. The NEC Chairman sat on the Board of tScheme, which is the
Government supported industry led, self regulatory enterprise engaged in
setting approval criteria for trust services and emerging as the preferred
alternative to Part I of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.
Membership of the E-Centre Legal Group and other bodies have kept NEC abreast
of activities in the area of law enforcement and human rights which also have
implications for the take up of E-Commerce. Awareness of wider global activity
comes to NEC from its association with Cyber Notaries UK. NEC has also had
extensive meetings with commercial organisations willing to engage the UK
Notarial profession in live electronic Notarial business and has also promoted
the profession through the offi ce of the E-envoy.

Principal Conclusions

If we are to draw any conclusions from the Project, the main one must be that
the technology does exist to enable Notaries to conduct their business utilising
the Internet in a secure and effi cient way and that such technology