AI Policy & Governance, Government Surveillance, Privacy & Data
CDT, EFF, Demand Progress Raise Urgent Concerns with Secure Notarization Act
The Center For Democracy & Technology (CDT) joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Demand Progress in raising concerns about the Secure Notarization Act. Specifically, we highlighted issues with how the bill could preempt more privacy protective state laws, and require long retention of personal information by third parties, that could be vulnerable to malicious hackers or demanded by government.
From the letter:
Unfortunately, this bill fails to require minimum privacy standards while simultaneously requiring the collection and retention of personally identifying and necessarily sensitive information. Currently, standard in-person notaries in many states do not retain copies of notarized documents or even copies of driver’s licenses or other ID credentials. In contrast, H.R. 3962 would require an online notary public to collect ID credentials and other data, including facial recognition biometrics and the contents of personal legal documents. Further, this bill would require remote online notarization companies to retain these documents and credentials – as well as the audiovisual recording of the entire performance of the notarization – for at least five years and as much as 10 years. And crucially, the bill does not prohibit the sale or disclosure of the data collected during an online notarization.
