Belgian Notaries Use nCipher

STONEHAM, Mass -- nCipher plc (LSE: NCH), a global leader in protecting critical enterprise data, announces that the Royal Federation of Belgian Notaries has deployed nCipher’s time stamping technology to ensure that digitally signed company registration documents are legally recognized and can be proved to be authentic. By conducting the process of registering a new company online with electronic documentation the need to send paper documents back and forth for hand-written signatures is eliminated and the process of registering a new company in Belgium has now been dramatically reduced – from an average of 56 days to only three days.

Verifying and witnessing new company registrations is just one of the vital, legally binding functions provided by the Royal Federation of Belgian Notaries (Fédération Royale du Notariat Belge, FRNB). To speed up their work and increase efficiency, the Belgium Ministry of Justice launched an initiative to create a secure infrastructure to replace hand-signed notarised paper documents and forms with digitally signed electronic documents that carry the same legal standing. Central to this initiative was the need to generate securely signed and time stamped digital documents that could not be tampered with and whose authenticity could be proven.

“Digital signatures provide a proven way to establish the authenticity of an electronic document, but for these documents to be of any legal value we need to be 100% sure of the point in time at which the document was digitally signed by one of our Notaries,” says Jan Biets, program manager at FRNB. “The deployment of nCipher’s Time Stamp Server means we can digitally sign and time stamp documents using a high-strength, tamper-resistant security appliance. Not only does this overcome the risks associated with software-based digital signing processes, but also provides an auditable and trusted record of date and time for all documents without relying on system clocks within host operating systems that can easily be altered.”

nCipher Corp. Ltd.