August 19, 2024 – OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to Congress today expressing strong concerns about securing and enabling Commerce Using Remote and Electronic (SECURE) Notarization Act, which would override state notarization laws. In the brief, Attorney General Bonta argues that any federal law requiring remote online notarization should allow states to monitor and prevent data breaches, fraud, and other abuses by allowing coexistence with more stringent and protective state notarization laws that states may have now or in the future.

“As our lives increasingly move online, we must protect our consumers’ privacy and prevent fraud,” said Attorney General Bonta. “States are the first front of consumer protection, any federal legislation should respect state notarization laws, not override them. As Attorney General, I am committed to protecting vulnerable Californians from fraud and other abuses. That will become much more difficult for many of our most sensitive transactions – from buying a home to signing a will – if California’s online notarization laws are overridden.”

The primary purpose of notarization is to verify the identity of the people whose signatures are used to formalize important transactions, including creating living wills, granting powers of attorney, and conducting real estate sales and purchases. The events that require notarization are rare in most people’s lives, but the consequences of fraud involving them can be significant.

The rules for notarization have long been governed by the states. California, for example, has an extensive body of state law regulating notaries and notarial activities, including notary registration, eligibility and duties, the identity authentication process, retention of private California information related to notarial activity, and regulatory oversight by the California Secretary of State. In 2023, the California Legislature passed SB 696, the Online Notarization Act, with broad bipartisan support, after failing three times to pass similar legislation that did not achieve the same level of consumer protection. SB 696 provides Californians with many protections, including prohibiting the sharing of consumers’ personal information and data security requirements.

The SECURE Notarization Act would deprive Californians of most of these protections by largely overriding state notarization law in the emerging field of online remote notarization. If enacted, the SECURE Notarization Act would also require states to recognize online notarizations from other states that meet minimum standards, with this forced reciprocity inevitably leading to a race to the bottom in terms of consumer protection. The SECURE Notarization Act does not include guidelines for retaining electronic records and other sensitive personal information that could be subject to data leaks or other misuse. This data – which is likely to be retained by notaries in online remote notarizations – was not previously collected as part of the traditional notarization process.

A copy of the letter can be found here.
Source: CA.DOJ