Electronic notary; notary to notarize document if signer is not present if identity is established. (HB2318)

While I see the need to establish criteria for e-notarization, I don't agree that the person doesn't first need to be a commissioned notary public. I am also concerned that it eliminates that traditional notary criteria, of establishing identity through identification proof. I see too much potential for fraud if basic notary procedures are not adhered to.

Where to start? Doesn't need to be a Notary Public--no knowledge base needed? What a bad concept. But, lack of personal appearance is the deal-breaker...not only of the person, but how does one actually 'see' or, more importantly, 'believe' an ID in this constantly evolving technology of photo-shop, etc., etc.
I, also, see way too much fraud potential if notary procedures that have endured for centuries are thrown out.

I also feel that the person needs to be a commissioned notary public. The notary public needs to know their state's laws.
I see too much opportunity for fraud here. Sometimes a fake ID just feels different. One can better see a possible fraudulent ID by touching it rather than by merely seeing it via a webcam.
Also, the possibility of coercion is greater than if the signer was in front of the notary. It would be impossible to see if someone was holding a weapon such as a gun or a club off-camera.

Say, what state do y'all live in?

(*crickets*)

To do away with the requirement that a signer physically appear before a notary defeats the purpose of notarization. How can a notary determine whether or not there is a person with a gun pointing at the signer? How can the notary hold the physical ID card to inspect it for alteration? This goes against everything that notaries have been doing for centuries.

ID fraud is a continuing problem.. States are adding features to driver's licenses that can't be seen via webcam. And to allow someone to be an electonic notary without being a commissioned notary public? That doesn't make sense.

Why would you authorize a non notary to notarize? Who is that person accountable to and what traing has that person had? What State's laws apply?

Personal appearance has always been required for notarizations for very good reasons, such as verifying identity and freedom from duress.

This is a very bad idea!

Technology can enhance the notary world but there are many issues with this bill. First, why is this a separate commission given that a new "person" requesting an electronic notary can perform all notary public duties and services of a commissioned notary, yet a currently commissioned notary public CAN NOT perform electronic notary public functions? So,a currently commissioned notary must apply and pay an additional fee to become an electronic notary? Mmmm. The bill sounds like the majority of the people that would be able to use this new technology would be those that possess a digital cerificate or a PIV. However, you make it sound like this will be the norm in the future. Is this applicable to loan documents? The more important question is why do you give the electronic notary the priviledge of accessing public and vital private information? Isn't that another license like that of a private investigator? Where does it stop for citizens to still have some privacy? This bill also adds an additional layer of responsibility and increased costs to the electronic notary yet I do not see an increase in the fee the notary may charge. You are requiring the electronic notary to purchase high tech items,and security. Do you have authorized vendors in place for that? You are requiring the electonic notary to ensure the inegrity and security and authenticity of electronic notarizations. How do you propose they do that? Just what is a PIV? How secure is it? More and more questions, this is a good start but needs much more thought before implementation.

Video notarizing will just open the floodgates for fraud. People could be on the video in disguises - wigs, fake mustaches or beards, wear theatrical makeup....a husband could pretend to be his wife and vice versa - on video - basically anybody could be anyone OTHER than who they really are - all for obviously fraudulent purposes.

On another note, people trying to nullify or breach legitimate contracts or transactions they freely agreed to can LIE and claim that someone else was in the room, outside of the video screen view, holding a gun, knife, baseball bat, taser, etc., and forced them to sign.

The scam artists will just take a photo of themselves in their disguise and photo-shop that on to a legitimate ID and put that online. No one will be the wiser until the victim is wiped out monetarily or the victim is arrested for some crime they never committed because the identity thief continued using the victim's ID for their crime sprees and racked up charges all over the country.

Video notarizing will take identity theft and blue/white collar crime to a whole new level - to the detriment of society.

This would totally erode the integrity of the position of notary public. Further, passage of this bill would open a door to fraud the likes of which we've never seen.

I am a notary public for the Commonwealth. This is a very bad idea. I cannot with good conscience participate in this type of video verification. Please reconsider and or kill this bill. Thank you.

This would be a major departure from the standards required in most states. When other states, or companies and individuals in other states, get wind of this, they may respond by refusing to recognize any notarization performend in Virginia.

Furthermore, there is no precedent for the notary to be located in one state and the signer in another. The notary has no way to determine the location of the signer. Thus the venue and law applicable to the notarial act is thrown into confusion.

How will you subpoena the person doing the notarization in a court case involving any type of fraud? Deposition? etc.

Please just do not let this bill pass. It is wrong in every way, not to mention all the citizens livelyhoods that potencially could be ruined by allowing this type of notarization to be available.

This comment is #14 in this list how many more do you need to explane that it just cannot be passed.

This bill, which is duplicated in the Senate, may have good intentions, but reeks of potential unintended consequences.

My primary concern is, by Virginia's own legislation, a person is defined:
§ 59.1-480. Definitions
(11) "Person" means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, public body, public corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity.

If you give the authority of a notary public to a "person" rather than to an individual, then any representative of any defined "person" can electronically notarize documents.

Additionally I noted that there is another bill proposing a change which allows for an electronic signature on the application to be a Virginia Notary Public.

While the intention may be to update processes to accommodate advanced technology, at some point there must be some human to human contact in order to maintain privacy and security in transactions.

My responsibility to correctly identify the person presenting a document for notarization is severly hampered if that person is not in front of me. I need to be able to verify their ID. It is not just a matter of looking at a picture, I want to examine it for tampering such as a picture being inserted or taped onto it, I want to verify dates for tampering, smudges, etc. I want the person in front of me period! That is the only way to protect myself and the consumer from fraud.

As a Notary, commissioned by the Commonwealth of Virginia, I would have to question the motives behind this bill.

The notary is quite often the last barrier to fraud. This bill removes that protection for the consumer.

In the era where the country has already suffered at the hands of greed and fraud, why remove one of the last protections?

I received an email just today (Sunday Jan 16) telling me to stay out of Virginia's business, since I live in California. People in Virginia have made real estate purchases in California. More often recently as the prices here have hit rock bottom. Those documents were notarized in Virginia then filed in California. I am sure the same is true for many other states. So what happens in Virginia doesn't stay in Virginia. It affects everyone to some extent or another. The relaxing of ID requirements in any state is both dangerous and will affect every other state, so respectfully, it is our business.

This matter is disturbing. I am not an attorney, so I don't know if this law is constitutional, but I would hope the law will not be enacted to replace personal appearance. It seems that there is a movement in this country to re-define the law. For my money, the law can be interpreted but should not allow itself to be changed by a re-definition. In essence, the re-definition is changing the law by saying you are not changing it. To me, it is using semantics and sophistry to create a false logic. I hope this law goes down in flames

Are we trying to prevent fraud by having the signer of documents appear in person in front of a live Notary? With video conferencing the notarization this will open the door to more fraud that we can ever imagine! Please vote No to this terrible idea!
Claudine C. Osborne

As a mobile notary, I have concerns with this bill and the companion bill in the Senate; first with confidently determining that a document signer is who they say they are, that they signed the document willingly, and that they are aware of its contents by notarizing via video conference. Other concerns relate to different sets of criteria for the notaries.

With fraud so prevalent in our county now, it makes you wonder what the writers of this bill are thinking! The possibility of scams, fraud, identity theft etc is unlimited. This bill would make it so much easier for those people. Shame on you!!!

There is a company based out of New Jersey that currently uses such a technology, though it is quite illegal in that state, at this time. They use web cams to view the document signers and the assigned notary public. Poor quality of the web cam and inconsistent internet transmissions, made one document signer not able to see or hear the notary public, and was eventually asked to call the notary public directly. Then when the document signer received their notarized document, the document signer, and the notary publics’ signature and stamp were not at all legible! Turned out to be a total waste of time for the document signer not worth the expense they paid.

If this and the other proposed notary bill passes, not only would the public be in danger, of not having their documents legally notarized, but the integrity of the notary public, who is a trusted third party that lends integrity and reliability to sensitive commercial and legal transactions, would severely be comprised.

These proposed bills, if passed, will lead to a very rapid rise of notary related fraudulent activities, for the commonwealth of Virginia. Does Virginia want to open the gate to the eventual flood of notarial fraud?

Create a new title “Electronic Notary Public” to have the legal right to act in the same capacity as a Notary Public with many more liberties including but not limited to not requiring personal appearance. To top it off this law includes the fact that a Notary Public with all the integrity this Public Office has historically and factually proven to have throughout the history of this county cannot provide this service. To exclude an actual Notary Public from this service shows that the person/people involved with creating and attempting to pass this bill is/are educated enough with the function and integrity of this Public Office to know they would not get support from them to pass and then act in this capacity. The documents that need to be notarized can be and typically are documents that are life changing for the person whose signature is being notarized. Passing this bill would just open avenues of other forms of public offices that have been sworn to serve and protect the public to simply be replaced by anyone with access to the internet.

I can't see how anyone could verify identity, willingness or understanding of the documents via video. This is probably seen as a boon to banks to expedite the loan process. What do they care if there's a little fraud happening here or there as the government will bail them out of their messes anyway. Our citizens need some protection from unscrupulous operators.

This is wrong on so many levels, where do you begin. I cannot imagine someone trying to identify another person by viewing their ID via webcam. You need to actually see it, hold it, etc to be sure it is not a fake. You need to be able to make a comparison of their signatures and I just dont know how you can do this via grainy webcams. It just opens the floodgates for fraud, and who do you think will be held liable? The notary of course.

This legislation would affect approximately 4.5 Million notaries in the United States alone. Think of the impact this legislation would have on the nation. The economical impact could be devastating.

And this is how we start to clean up fraud?Vote no!

http://www.findmyid.com/clipclip1.htm

This is totally to cover the robosigner fraud for big banks.

No way Jose. Do not allow this bill to pass. If you do, the integrity of the Notarization process would be compromised and fraud would be rampant. If you eliminate the controls provided by face to face appearance, you are asking for trouble. If anything, you should be implementing more controls such as finger printing of the signer or biometrics technology to safeguard the Notarization process. Take my advice. I am a retired Certified Fraud Examiner. Human beings are a special breed., Given a need, an opportunity, and a rational, the individual is more likely, than not,to commit fraud. All Fraudsters have a need and a rational. They are just waiting for an opportunity. Do not, and I repeat, Do not give them the opportunity by eliminating the safeguards we presently have in place.

Notaries have been the bastions of trust and integrity for over two thousand years in deterring fraud.

This bill undermines the cardinal rule of notary practice, that of personal appearance; please reconsider the significant consequences of this legislation upon those notaries that YOU commission to protect the public!

State of Virginia Governor Bob McConnell has approved the controversial HB 2318 allowing audio and video conferencing as satisfactory evidence of personal appearance in an electronic notarization. AYIN International, Inc. has been a long time advocate and proponent of this enhancement in electronic notary transactions.
“Simply speaking, in the digital era, contract transaction times are occurring in nano seconds, yet the Notary Public is expected to maintain their level of service using manual analog processes like traveling and personally appearing. This must change and change now”, states J. Andrew Hatter Chairman of AYIN International, Inc.
Currently almost all States have adopted some version of the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act allowing for legalization of digital and electronic signatures. Federally the Electronic Signatures and Global and National Commerce Act provide similar legislative support.
“We’ve always questioned the wisdom in the acceptance of an electronic signature in an online transaction as legally binding”, states Hatter, “We will accept a digital or electronic signature without seeing who is signing it, but when it comes to witnessing the signing of a document for an electronic notarization, physical appearance is required.”
Both Virginia Senator John Edwards and Delegate Kathy Byron along with the Virginia legislative bodies are to be applauded for taking a proactive approach in not only allowing videoconferencing remote notarization which will undoubtedly strengthen e-commerce and overall business infrastructure but in fact they have taken steps to address an even more dire situation and that is mortgage fraud.
Because of “robo signing” many homeowners, states and the entire Real Estate industry is currently suffering the worst downturn in the housing market ever. In part, shadow inventory which is the result of bank owned properties being sold below market has become part of the problem; however this was born out of “illegal foreclosures” involving improper notarization and filing of affidavits.
It is hoped that HB2318 will give the State of Virginia a leg-up by insuring accountability for electronic notarization in Real Estate transactions. Innovations in electronic notarization are the order of the day specifically for Real Estate transactions as Virginia becomes the staging grounds for stabilizing the market.