AnalysisWashington becomes the sixteenth state to enact the Uniform Electronic Recording Act, authorizing county recorders to accept electronic documents for recordation. It will be interesting to see how the URPERA technical standards are implemented in Washington, a state that has enacted a strong digital signature statute. Under Washington law, a public-key certificate issued by a licensed certification authority must be used to affix an electronic signature (the so called “digital signature). However, in the URPERA, an “electronic signature” is defined much more broadly to allow any technology — and not just digital signatures with a Public Key Infrastructure — to affix an electronic signature. It remains to be seen if there will be a conflict between these two laws, one of which prescribes use of a particular technology for affixing an electronic signature and another which does not.
Read House Bill 2459.