California Business Law Blog: Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, A.P.C.: Online Notary Public Alert

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Online Notary Public Alert

California's Secretary of State has issued an alert regarding online notary services, purporting to provide notarization for California residents over the Internet using a webcam. A webcam is not a permissible substitute for appearing before a notary in person (or having the notary travel to you, if you are not mobile). Notary license may be checked online here. The full text of the alert follows:

Online webcam notarization is invalid and illegal in the State of California.

A private company claims to have the first online notarization website and has sent misleading information and made false claims to California notaries public concerning a new online notarization service. The web-based platform purports to allow a person to submit copies of identification over the Internet and to use a webcam in lieu of a personal appearance in front of a notary public. Appearance via webcam does not meet the requirements for notarization in California.

California notaries public are authorized under current law to perform electronic notarizations as long as all the requirements for a traditional paper-based notarial act are met, including the use of a seal for all but two specific documents used in real estate transactions. California law requires a person to appear personally before a notary public to obtain notarial acts like acknowledgments or jurats. This means the party must be physically present before the notary public. A video image or other form of non-physical representation is not a personal appearance in front of a notary public under current state or federal laws. The technology solution offered by this private company does not comply with California law.

No comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Legal Information/Terms: California Business Law Blawg. Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, A.P.C. All rights reserved. Nothing herein shall be deemed legal advice, nor shall it create an attorney-client relationship. Postings are believed accurate when made, but may not be complete; may not be updated to reflect recent developments or changes in the law; are not reviewed or revised on a regular basis; and may not apply to your particular circumstances and therefore may not be relied upon for legal advice. For legal advice, retain an attorney in your jurisdiction. None of the contents of this blog are intended as attorney advertising, nor as solicitation for legal services, in any jurisdiction where this site does not comply with all of the laws, rules, regulations, and ethical mandates of that jurisdiction. All excerpts from copyrighted materials of third parties are intended to, and believed to, fall within fair use; copyright owners who believe the use to exceed fair use should contact the firm with their concerns:

http://www.incorporatecalifornia.com/
http://www.jonasmgrant.com/

Privacy policy: This is a web site of Law Office of Jonas M. Grant, A.P.C. Our postal address is 10775 Double R Blvd., Reno, NV 89521. We can be reached via e-mail at jonas [-at-] jonasmgrant [-dot-] com or you can reach us by telephone at 818-786-4876. For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes no information regarding the domain or e-mail address. We collect the e-mail addresses of those who post messages to our bulletin board, but no information on consumers who browse our Web page. The information we collect is used for internal review and is then discarded and/or is used to improve the content of our Web pages. With respect to cookies: We use cookies to ensure that visitors are not repeatedly sent the same banner ads and in conjunction with Google Adsense's serving of Google ads on this site (web beacons may be used also or instead). If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending us e-mail at the above address. With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policies of http://www.google.com/privacy.html From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will post the policy changes to our Web site to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our Web site periodically. Customers may prevent their information from being used for purposes other than those for which it was originally collected by e-mailing us at the above address. If you feel that this site is not following its stated information privacy policy, you may contact us at the above addresses or phone number.

Comment Policy: Comments, anonymous or otherwise, are accepted and welcomed; however, all comments are moderated and those that are spam, primarily advertising, do not add to the discussion, off-topic, duplicative, etc. may not be published. The author reserves the right to publish, edit, or delete any post at any time. Comments become the property of the author upon submission. If you disagree with this comment policy, don't submit a comment.