The other week, as part of my children’s passport renewals, I not only needed facial development photos, but I also needed to get a notarized document.
How do you get a notarized document when overseas? Well, you can make an appointment at an embassy for a notarization, but you have to make an appointment, they have limited hours, and, even if you live in a city with an embassy, it will take you at least an hour to get it done. Alternatively, in most countries (except these 54), you can go to a local public notary and get a notarization. Unfortunately, as you’ll know if you’ve ever done this, that process is painstakingly slow and often a bureaucratic mess.
When I visited a public notary years ago, it took an entire day to get my document notarized. I’m not kidding, it took an entire eight hours: two hours to find a notary who would do it because the first ones I visited refused, then six hours to get the document processed once I found a helpful notary. It was a total pain in the neck. For another expat friend, it took three days to get them completed. Three entire days. There has to be a better way.
Thankfully, there is, and it’s called Notarize.com.1
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What Notarize.com is
Notarize.com—which, for simplicity’s sake I’ll just call Notarize from now on—is an online public notarization service, and it’s absolutely brilliant. Upload your identity document and what you need notarized, then meet a licensed US public notary via video call, and get a valid notarization stamp on your document. When I just did it last week, it took about five minutes. They didn’t care that I was halfway around the world because they’re open 24/7 and have systems to validate the identity of the signer. It was the simplest notarization I’ve done in my life.
Let me repeat: it took just five minutes. Not an entire day, like a public notary in my host culture, not a few hours like visiting a US embassy, and not even the 20 minutes it would take in the US. It took five minutes and only cost $25. That’s a steal (and happens to be half the price of a notarization at a US embassy and less then half the price of a local public notary in my host country).
Even better, they have pre-loaded a bunch of commonly used forms: DS-3053 (to authorize one parent to renew a minor’s passport without the other present), a general power of attorney form, and many more. If what they have suits you, your visit to Notarize may even eliminate some lawyer fees.
How to use Notarize
Getting a document notarized via Notarize is about as simple as it can be. Here’s what you do:
- Go to Notarize.com
- Upload or scan your document – They make this super simple by sending a link to your phone to scan the document if you don’t have it already scanned.
- Upload your identity document – Like above, they make this super simple, whether you have your document scanned already or not.
- Meet a notary on a video call – You’ll see video of the public notary and see your document as the notary fills out the information.
- Pay – It costs $25 for the first stamp, then $10 for each additional seal.
- Get your document – Download your document or forward it to someone else. Included is the authentication code which can be used to validate the document.
That’s it. There are parts of expat life that are notoriously complicated. Notarizations no longer have to be.
How Notarize provides reliable and secure e-notarizations
What’s awesome about an e-notarization is that it provides far more validation than a typical notarization. Here’s three reasons why:
First, your e-notarization comes with an authentication code. If you presented a typical notarization to someone who requested it, there’s almost no way they could validate the notarization without an immense amount of work: identifying the notary, finding their phone number somehow, calling that notary, proving they have a legitimate basis to question the validity of the notarization, and then asking the notary to consider their records to affirm whether or not they actually made such a notarization. However, the notary’s records would include your name, date, and what kind of document was notarized, but the notary would have no way to tell if the document in your hand is the same as what they notarized.
With Notarize, though, they provide you with an authentication code which provides access to an online version of the document that was notarized. In a few seconds, the requester can compare the document in hand with the online record to guarantee that they match.
Second, Notarize records and saves video of the notarization process so that there is an audit record of the transaction. Now, there are privacy implications of that—see cautions below—but it makes it a far superior form of authenticated proof. If there’s ever a legal question of whether a document was properly notarized, or of who did it, then there is an audio-visual record of the notarization taking place. That provides far greater weight in, say, a court of law, than a public notary’s memory of what occurred years after the fact.
Third, Notarize can more thoroughly authenticate identity than a public notary can. When you upload your identity document, Notarize checks if it’s been forged or altered and then asks you a series of verification questions from your public information. A public notary is likely not skilled in checking validity and probably can’t run the checksum numbers to spot a forgery, but because Notarize is online and automated, they can.
For all these reasons, governments and businesses are increasingly realizing that an e-notarization is not just a more convenient way to get a notarization; it’s actually a far superior method of authenticating a document.
Things to note
Now, in an unbiased assessment of Notarize, there are two things you should be aware of before you use Notarize. I don’t call them hesitations or cautions, as that implies something negative, but they are items to keep in mind.
First, not all places accept e-notarizations
E-notarizations are rapidly gaining acceptance because of their superiority, but with any innovation, some places lag behind. As of the time of publication, most US states—45, according to Blue Notary—accept e-notarizations, but that doesn’t mean that every business will or that every government will.2 If you need the document in one of the 5 states that doesn’t accept an e-notarization, you’ll need to look elsewhere. Also, it appears to depend on each state, but there may be particular purpose for which an e-notarization isn’t acceptable.
If your document will be submitted to the US Federal government or to another government, you’ll definitely want to check in advance because Federal government offices seem hit or miss on whether they accept e-notarizations or not. The embassy I visited for passport renewal said, via email, that the e-notarization was acceptable, but when we arrived, they said it wasn’t (unless I showed the email demonstrating we’d gotten approval).
Foreign governments, likewise, may not accept the e-notarization.
So, check in advance to make sure the e-notarization would be acceptable by the party that is requiring it. Hopefully, someday e-notarizations will be accepted everywhere, but until that day comes, exercise a bit of preemptive caution.
Second, Notarize records a digital record
Notarize keeps an electronic record of the e-notarization. This is actually one of the benefits of the e-notarization process, because there is a full audit trail and A/V recording of the notarization process, enabling the document to stand up to intense legal scrutiny. However, that comes with the trade-off of there being a digital record of your notarization, including whatever personal information was included in the notarization. Some of that information would exist for an in-person notarization as well—it’s typically required by law—but traditional notarizations don’t include copies of the document notarized and would be far harder for a criminal to access than a digital record.
Thankfully, Notarize appears to be exercising appropriate security measures to secure your information. Here’s how they describe their practice:
At Notarize, we know it’s important to keep your data secure before, during, and after the notarization process. That’s why our platform employs various measures to ensure the security and privacy of personal information including the encryption and protection of all data in transit and at rest using AES-256 bit encryption and tracking of all application access. The Notarize platform has also been subjected to various comprehensive information security audits and penetration testing. For more information on Notarize’s privacy practices, see Notarize’s Privacy Policy.
You’ll have to decide if that potential risk is worth the convenience of an online notarization, but it’s good to be aware of the always-present possibility of a hack or security breach. If you’re notarizing a document that contains the formula of Coke or which would get someone killed if exposed…maybe do that with a traditional notary.3
Conclusion
Expats still need to get documents notarized and, traditionally, that requires a time-consuming and expensive process, but e-notarizations are changing that. Using a service like Notarize to get an e-notarization is quick, easy, inexpensive, and a superior form of notarization for your documents.
Whether you need to give someone power of attorney, authorize one parent to renew minor passports by themselves, sign business documents, or a host of other things, Notarize.com should be a service you consider to make your expat life a bit simpler.
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Footnotes
- Most articles on The Prepared Expat are written for any expat in any country of the world, but sometimes I break with that pattern for something that is specific to US expats or expats in the US. Today is one of those exceptions, as I do not believe Notarize is available for non-US citizens or legal residents. ↩︎
- As of time of publishing and per BlueNotary, the US states that accept e-notarizations are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, lowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. ↩︎
- I have no idea what kind of document could get someone killed if exposed, but if your name is James Bond, then maybe use a traditional notary. ↩︎
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