Since December 29, a special marking – QR-code will appear on most notarial documents, the Federal Notary Chamber reported on Monday, December 28.
The QR code will be placed in the lower right corner of the notarial document and will provide additional protection against counterfeiting.
A scanning application on a smartphone will be enough for authentication. After reading the code, the user will see on the screen information about the applicants and their representatives, the date of the notarial act, the type of notarial act and its registration number, the name of the notary, the notary’s district.
Such markings cannot be duplicated, transferred to another document or otherwise deceived the system, the chamber notes.
A possible attempt by cybercriminals to generate code in another program and put it on the document will be opened during verification. Information about each notarial act is entered by a notary into the Unified Information System (UIS) of the notary, and a QR code check with a unique number will automatically determine whether a document with such details is present in the notarial database. If the document is registered in the system, then it is genuine.
The appearance of QR codes on notarial documents also makes the existence of a criminal “market” of counterfeit notarial forms meaningless – such forgeries were immediately detected by notaries or government agencies upon presentation, if they sent a request to the UIS of a notary. Now, almost anyone will be able to independently establish the authenticity of a notary document, and buying a forged form with a fake notary seal will not help to get around the law.
From December 29, QR codes will appear on powers of attorney, wills, marriage and inheritance contracts, agreements on the payment of alimony, rent, pledge, sale and purchase agreements, consent of spouses to alienate property and other important documents. It is noted that this innovation will not affect the cost of notary services in any way.
On December 25, it was reported that the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation prepared recommendations for the Federal Assembly and the Government of the Russian Federation, the purpose of which is to increase the security of real estate transactions.