Can an Oregon Notary Use ENJOA?

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SUBJECT: Can an Oregon Notary Use ENJOA? 10/9/03
Can an Oregon Notary Use ENJOA?
ENJOA is a commercial product of the National Notary Association that seeks to take the notary journal into the electronic age. ENJOA stands for "Electronic Notary Journal of Official Acts" and basically is a database of notarial act records. A journal entry can be signed using a digitized image of a handwritten signature, an electronically recorded thumbprint and can include a digital photograph.

The Secretary of State's office has received several inquiries about the acceptability of ENJOA for Oregon notaries. After extensive review, we conclude that an Oregon Notary Public may not use ENJOA. There are several reasons:

Journal Requirements
Oregon Administrative Rule 160-100-0200 details the form and content of the Oregon Notarial Journal. Despite the National Notary Association's claims, ENJOA does not meet each requirement.

The journal must, according to rule, meet the "physical requirements set out" in the rule, which include a binding that prevents insertion/deletion of pages and consecutive numbering on pre-printed pages. The purpose of this rule is to both easily ascertain all the possible entries of the journal, and to detect if there has been any tampering.

Notwithstanding the electronic (as opposed to physical) nature of the product, ENJOA is the functional equivalent of a three-ring binder, that may be added to at any time. Most investigations would not discover any tampering, or if there were illegal additions or deletions.

Administrative Needs
The Secretary of State has the statutory duty of investigating notarial complaints, which includes review of journal entries. ENJOA would require us to have compatible software resident on our systems. Our experience has shown us that proprietary software can represent an insurmountable problem when and if that software becomes obsolete, upgraded, or desupported. Version control can become a major burden. Security, especially the problem of virus protection, becomes an issue.

If the records are instead downloaded or printed, there is no assurance in ENJOA that the records delivered to the Secretary of State are the actual and complete records of that transaction.

The problems become more acute when, as in the case of notarial death or revocation of the commission, the Secretary must store the journal on behalf of the notary.

Privacy and Security Considerations
ENJOA requires a thumb or fingerprint, in addition to the signature of the signer. Oregon law does not require a thumbprint for any notarization, and there has been a fair amount of resistance to the issue in the past. Many Oregonians do not want to give up their thumbprint to have something notarized. It seems an invasion of privacy to them. No law in any state requires a picture of the document signer, yet ENJOA encourages notaries to take and store them.

Related to that, perhaps, is the understanding that the notary is collecting a potentially large database of signatures, biometric data and photographs that is subject to abuse. Identity theft, by the notary or someone with access to a notary's computer, would be a relatively simple affair. Victims would have an enormously difficult time repudiating their thumbprint, and might not have any idea how their identity was stolen.

Picture a notary that works for a bank or other large firm. All it would take would be one or two abuses of the stored information to generate handsome profits. There would be little recourse for the victim.

ENJOA is a fine product, but does not meet the current standards for Oregon notarial journals. When standards for electronic journals are created, then the Secretary of State will re-evaluate ENJOA according to those criteria.

Corporation Division

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