I saw an interesting headline from the Financial Times which essentially asked what happens when you can’t tell whether a person online is a robot or not. This has been a question I’ve been asking for a while since RON came out. We need to be very careful.
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Especially with AI; it’s a wonder they haven’t done away with RON and online notarizations all together. I’ve heard that some of what we see on tv is conjured\fake\computerized
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A lot of it is probably fake and that can be awful for people who rely on us to confirm truth. It’s a scary thing to think someone can generate your appearance and sell your property without you even being aware it is happening.
All of my RON signings are video and audio recorded. During the introduction phase I request that the person give me their name, address and location from which they are connected. Then I required that they hold up the physical ID they used to sign into the platform so that I can make a visual comparison of their image to the picture ID. A robot (AI) can’t comply with these procedures.
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Absolutely correct! There are ways to verify you are dealing with a real person versus AI. There are things a real person can answer quickly that an AI might have take time to answer, if they can at all, arrive at the correct answer.
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It seems to me that there are several scenarios that are typically used for notary work. I guess I’m a bit too cautious to be comfortable thinking that what is on the other side of a computer screen isn’t manipulated in some way. Technology has been exploding and will only get more sophisticated. It doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.
Every one of us interact with computer technology dozens of times every day to carry out routine tasks in our lives, and we mostly never think about it. I’m old enough to remember going to tellers at a bank to cash a check – before the advent of ATMs. I remember cashiers at the grocery store. And while there are still a few of those, there are typically many more self- check out counters, often with longer lines. And how many of us have never purchased anything on AMAZON - giving over our debit/credit card information and that CVV code on the back of the card? Do you still go downtown to pay your utility bill in person?
I have no doubt that soon robots will replace us humans to complete online notarizations in the not too distant future. That doesn’t mean that it will be more risky and prone to theft than what we do in person. (That Uniform Residential Loan Application gives us all their credit history, birth date and SSN. Imagine the damage us humans could do with that!) RON is convenient and pretty safe from everything I have experienced so far, and no more prone to misuse than anything else we do while engaging in commerce. But, we all have our level of (dis)comfort. Personally, I don’t do DoorDash. I would never let a third (random) person handle something I am going to put into my mouth and feel comfortable they didn’t take a taste or breathe on it. Really?!
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Truly valid points! Especially the door dash comment. I’m right there with you on that one!! Lol
The other aspect of RON is that the signer goes through multiple choice knowledge based verification and the answers are those items only they should know. In addition, their ID is scanned for authenticity and will soon have their face or fingerprint scanned as an additional security option. The notary is the last line of defense. In my interactions with signers, I have been able to tell when someone is being coached on what to say. If there is anything I can spot at any point on the process that doesn’t seem right, I have the option of ending the session without notarizing anything. I have actually found RON to be very secure.
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