[legalxml-enotary] Arizona enotary law

[John Messing <jmessing@law-on-line.com>]

Dr. Leff's literature search included the Arizona electronic notary act, which has been the subject of comment. One controversial provision allows for enotarization outside the presence of the notary. This has been described by one source as a state-sanctioned method of digitally signing in which a notary acts as a registration authority for the issuance of a digital certificate by a state-approved CA. This chain creates a trust model that Arizona considers sufficiently trustworthy 
to allow the subscribing party to digitally sign documents that are considered to have been properly and legally notarized, even without a notarial signature or seal.

The text of the law is considerably more complex and difficult to follow. It can be found at http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/41/00356.htm. 

The law is not yet implemented but is on the books and could be vitalized and activated if and when budgetary shortfalls are remedied.

The person-to-key binding established by the legislation creates the type of self-proving documentary evidence that we have referenced in our charter. The Arizona model is thus a useful prototype for our purposes.

I have received private email communications about the PRIA DTD which was distributed. I think we should as a group look at the ways in which person-to-key binding can be expressed and implemented within the DTD as a model for other notary documents. Obviously DSIG has the tools for signing the XML, but the certificate chain and the relationships to be legally authorized need to be clarified and implemented. That I believe is a discussion of the proper practices which will move us forward to a scope and requirements specification for the initial work set forth in the Charter, and I request comment upon this approach.