Notaries now are able to serve simultaneously remotely connected and in-office clients

Starting July 1 of this year, notarial actions in Lithuania can be performed in a mixed way, when one of the parties to the transaction will connect with the notary through a secure remote connection, and the other party will participate in the transaction while in the notary's office.

"This is another step in expanding the opportunities to more conveniently provide legal services to the state's residents, while at the same time ensuring the rule of law through notary supervision", the president of the Lithuanian Chamber of Notaries, Klaipėda notary Marius Stračkaitis said.

In addition, according to the president of the Chamber of Notaries, an application which included artificial intelligence in the customer identification process, has been implemented in May. The app was developed by the start-up Idenfy.

According to M. Stračkaitis, the decisions implemented by the Chamber of Notaries of Lithuania fill the technological gap that appeared after legalizing the possibility of remote notarial actions last year. The new update to the eNotaras system allows a notary to confirm a transaction in which one of the parties is connected remotely through the eNotaras system, and the other participates "live" in the notary's office.

A year ago, on July 1, 2021, amendments to the Law on Notary came into force, which provided for the possibility of performing the absolute majority of notarial acts in a secure remote way, through the eNotaras system. Since then, more than 4,000 remote notarial actions have been performed per year, among which the most popular are confirmation of powers of attorney, mortgage and pledge transactions, real estate and shares and securities transfer transactions, initiation of inheritance cases and issuance of inheritance certificates.

When conducting a transaction remotely, a threefold mechanism of personal identification is engaged: a person connects to the eNotary system through the e-Government Gateway, confirming his identity through electronic banking or with an electronic or mobile signature, then artificial intelligence compares the person's image with his image in the document and submits its conclusion to the notary, and finally the notary once again verifies the identity of the person by comparing the image of the person and the data of his documents with the data stored in the state registers. In order to perform a notarial act remotely, a person must have a valid qualified electronic signature.