Electronic notary

A process for notarizing at least one document by a client in the physical presence of a notary from a local workstation on a global communication network which is authenticated at a central office on the global communication network to provide an electronic notarized document, the process conducted in accordance with an official notarization process recognized by government agencies, and wherein the notary possesses a fiducial relationship with the government agency, comprising the steps of:

• registering the notary at the central office, such that the notary has associated therewith at the central office in a database both an electronic indicia unique to the notary and associated encryption keys;
• registering the client at the central office, such that the client has associated therewith at the central office in a database an electronic indicia unique to the client;
• initiating a transaction at the local workstation by the notary and the client who are physically present thereat, such that the notarization process is conducted with the notary and client being disposed at the local workstation at the same time and being a requirement thereof;
• associating the client with the notary at the central office and issuing a first set of transaction encryption keys assigned to the client for at least the current transaction, and associating the encryption keys for the client and the notary in a first association in the database at the central office;
• forwarding to the central office at least one document to be notarized;
• assigning a second set of transaction encryption keys for the document associated with the current transaction;
• associating in a second association in the database at the central office the encryption keys of the client with the encryption keys of the document;
• verifying that the encryption keys of the client for the current transaction are associated with the encryption keys of both the notary and the document and, if so, generating a transaction code at the central office and transmitting it to the workstation for authorizing execution of the at least one document to provide for the notarizing of the at least one document;
• executing the at least one document by the client by executing the transaction code at the workstation to cause the central office to associate with the at least one document at the central office the electronic indicia of both the client and the notary, wherein the step of executing occurs when the notary and client are located at the local station exclusive of all other locations;
• and
• embedding at least a selected one of the respective encryption keys in association with the electronic indicia of both the client and the notary already associated with the at least one document.

A process for notarizing at least one document, by a client in the physical presence of a notary, the process conducted in accordance with an official notarization process recognized by government agencies, and wherein the notary possesses a fiducial relationship with the government agency, comprising the steps of:

• registering the notary and the client, from a local workstation coupled to a central office via a global communication network, to provide for assigning at least one respective encryption key to each of the notary and the client, wherein the central office as a result of the step of registering will have stored thereat information associated with both the client and the notary representing indicia that is associated with a notarized document as the result of a notarization process;
• initiating a transaction by the notary and the client while the notary and client are physically disposed at a local workstation at the same time in their respective persons;
• associating in a first database in the central office through actions by the notary the at least one encryption key of the client with the at least one encryption key of the notary to provide a first association;
• forwarding by the client at least one document to be notarized to the central office, wherein the central office assigns at least one encryption key thereto;
• associating in the first database the at least one encryption key of the client with the at least one encryption key of the at least one document in a second association;
• verifying that the at least one encryption key of the client is associated with both the first and second associations;
• generating a transaction code, based on the step of verifying, for authorizing execution of the at least one document to provide for the notarizing of the at least one document, and transmitting the transaction code from the central office to the local workstation;
• executing the at least one document by the client by executing the transaction code at the local workstation to cause the central office to associate with the at least one document at the central office the indicia of both the client and the notary;
• and
• embedding at least a selected one of the respective encryption keys in association with the indicia of both the client and the notary already associated with the at least one document, the step of executing and embedding occurring while the notary and the client are disposed at the local workstation.