NEWS / Philippines allows electronic notarization of documents

The Supreme Court of the Philippines has launched its eNotarization initiative to allow Electronic Notaries Public (ENP) to notarize documents by means of an Electronic Notarization Facility (ENF) Provider, Preview reports.

The Supreme Court, which launched the initiative October 19, published a list of ENF Providers on its website. All signatories and witnesses would need to register and undergo an identity verification process with their ENF Provider of choice. Identity verification involves presenting a government-issued form of identification (passport or driver’s license). Current regulations stipulate that all participants—the signatory, the notary, and the witnesses—would need to be physically located in the Philippines with a geolocation feature used to verify this.

Signatories would be able to upload their documents in PDF or PDF-A format. Once the document is digitally signed and notarized, its digital copy would be stores with the Supreme Court Central Notarial Database for official records. Any individual would be able to verify the authenticity of the document by scanning a QR-code that would be printed on it.

The measure is similar to the Remote Online Notarization (RON) services available for use in every US state except for California. Unlike the Philippines, the 49 US states that allow RON only require the notary to be physically present in their respective state, while the signatories can be in a different state or even abroad. Some, but not all, allow the electronically notarized documents to be apostilled or authenticated for use abroad.

If you require your documents to be notarized, apostilled, or authenticated for use abroad, do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail at info@apostille.us or by phone (212) 233-7061. You can also place an orderon our website.