HB 52: Bringing Notaries into the 21st Century

This bill passed the House and Senate unanimously. 

A Notary Public is a person deemed trustworthy by the state to witness the signing of important documents. Historically, in Utah, to get a document notarized it has been required to perform this process in person.

House Bill 52, sponsored by Representative Craig Hall, would change that by allowing this process to be done electronically online. Virginia was the first state to do so, in 2012. Since then, a handful of other states have adopted similar laws. Utah should be the next.

There’s no reason to compel people to travel long distances to obtain a legal witness to a document signing when this can be done over Skype, Facetime, or other technologies that facilitate people to virtually interact while still verifying identification and the signing of the document.