California Attorney General Rob Bonta has sent a letter to Congress expressing concerns over the Securing and Enabling Commerce Using Remote and Electronic (SECURE) Notarization Act, which aims to preempt state notarization laws. In his letter, Bonta argues that any federal law on remote online notarization should allow states to monitor and prevent data breaches, fraud, and other abuses by allowing more robust state notarization laws to coexist.
"As more of our lives move online, we must be diligent about safeguarding consumer privacy and preventing fraud," said Attorney General Bonta. "States are the front lines of consumer protection; any federal legislation should embrace, rather than preempt, state notarization laws. As the People’s Attorney, I'm committed to protecting vulnerable Californians from fraud and other abuses. That will be much more difficult for many of our most sensitive transactions — from buying a house to signing a will — if California's online notarization laws are preempted."
Notarization serves to verify the identities of individuals involved in formalizing significant transactions such as advance healthcare directives, powers of attorney, and real estate sales. While these events are infrequent for most people, the potential consequences of related fraud can be substantial.
State governments have historically regulated notarizations. California has an extensive body of state law governing notaries and notarial acts, including registration, eligibility, duties of notaries, identity authentication processes, preservation of private information related to notarial acts, and regulatory oversight by the California Secretary of State. In 2023, the California Legislature enacted SB 696, the Online Notarization Act with broad bipartisan support after previous attempts failed due to insufficient consumer protections. SB 696 includes safeguards such as prohibitions on sharing consumers' personal information and requirements for data security.
The SECURE Notarization Act would undermine many of these protections by broadly preempting state notarization laws in remote online notarization. If enacted into law, it would require states to recognize out-of-state online notarizations that meet minimum standards with forced reciprocity. This could result in diminished consumer protections across states. The SECURE Notarization Act also lacks guidance on preserving electronic recordings and other sensitive personal information that could be subject to data breaches or misuse — data likely retained by notaries due to remote online notarizations but previously uncollected during traditional processes.
A copy of the letter can be found here.