2006 goals as stated in fourth quarter report of Steering Committee

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

The following is from the fourth quarter report of the Member Section to
OASIS. It is posted for your consideration prior to tomorrow's meeting
in the hopes it will help focus the efforts of the TC.

E-Notary Technical Committee

1. Pennsylvania eNotarization Kickoff

The National Notary Association has worked with Pennsylvania state and
county government officials over the past year to begin a statewide
eNotarization initiative, which involves the issuance of client digital
certificates to Notaries throughout the state in a cooperative
technology environment that involves the Pennsylvania Department of
State and several county recorder offices.

It is the hope of eNotary TC officers that this launch will see a major
surge in activity in the US concerning eNotarization and the work of
the TC. The Chair in particular hopes to include key participants from
state government Notary regulatory bodies in the work of the TC, as
well as at least three major corporate members.

2. eNotarization – A US Perspective

eNotary TC officers continue to establish and build contacts in industry
associations in which notarization plays an important role. The need for
cross-industry standards is readily apparent in these discussions.

The passage of electronic notarization legislation and regulations in
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Kansas based on the National Notary
Association’s Model Notary Act signals an important development. At
least four additional states now have legislation introduced or
drafted.

Legislators continue to work in coordination on these efforts with
URPERA (the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act) drafting
committees in those states that have adopted this act. The TC
leadership continues to develop appropriate support for membership of
this TC through contacts in these bodies. We remain convinced that this
legislative activity signals an upturn in interest in eNotarization
across a broad variety of government agencies and private industries.

3. Membership and Support

The membership of the TC has been of primary importance to the officers.
To date, we have several new members we are encouraging to join and hope
to solidify the membership base in 2006 to advance the work of the
group. The challenges for membership are simple: eNotarization is still
very new legislatively; the data standards the TC develops will need to
reflect the legislative landscape. The officers are hopeful that the
increased legislative activity will lead to greater interest in the
TC’s efforts.

The chair of the TC will continue to focus on encouraging membership and
sponsorship of these efforts. Several large industry leaders, including
GeoTrust, Adobe and Microsoft, are showing greater interest in
participating.

In particular, the Chair has received membership committals from three
new participants and hopes to solidify their membership in February
2006.

4. Ongoing work and status of each initiative

A. To adopt Notary standard for transmitting notary journal data from
individual desktops or registries to public central registries located
in public sector facilities. It was estimated that this would take 6
months to develop the requirements and one year to complete standard.

STATUS: National Notary Association draft XML specification is completed
and will be submitted for initial review and possible adoption by TC by
February 2006. Based upon availability of members, draft review can
begin in spring 2006.

B. Horizontal effort for jurats, certificates. To be cooordinated with
other LegalXML TC bodies. Open-ended with no deadlines.

STATUS: Goal is to draft journal XML specification and then turn
attention to certificates as next priority.

C. dss profile - to adopt enotary standard for either server signing or
server timestamping of client notary signatures. It was estimated that
this would take 3 mos to develop the requirements and one year to
complete standard

STATUS: No work underway at this time. Committee hopes to begin work in
2006.

5. Other projects

A. Apostilles - Apostilles are international certifications regarding
the identity, seal and signature of notaries. There are a few data
fields only, as defined by the 1961 Hague Convention. Over 20 states
have requested information and potential adoption of standards through
the National Notary Association, which indicates a greater degree of
interest in this project than originally planned.

STATUS: The NNA is coordinating with The Hague at this time to launch an
eApostille education program internationally. The Chair hopes to
announce this effort to the TC membership in late February 2006.

B. Inter-jurisdictional court orders. Court orders from a foreign
jurisdiction that are presented in a second jurisdiction, require
certification within the US by clerks in a way much like notarization
is done with notarized documents.

STATUS: No work underway.