Digital Notarisation, Trust & Blockchain
Digital Notarisation, Trust & Blockchain - Can I have a receipt for that please?
Notarisation (Notarization) in the real world allows us to have a document verified by a trusted third party; a Notary Public. The Notary confirms, for example, that I am the person who is signing a document that confirms the price I am quoting in a proposal. It’s a means of verifying my signature and as such my word.
Digital Notarisation works similarly by confirming a digital event in a manner that is irrefutable. When I click to accept a condition or upload a document, digital notarisation confirms this event and shares the digital keys necessary to verify the notarisation. The event is recorded by a digital stamp that is unique and can not be broken or altered without breaking its relationship to the event. If the event is a document upload then the notarisation ensures that whoever receives the upload can not alter it because I have the corresponding digital key. If I wish to prove to a third party that the document I have is the same as the one uploaded then the third party can use the key to confirm that the document I present to them is the same, unaltered in any way, as the one I uploaded.
This three-way verification reflects the real-world process where you are the first party, the Notary Public is the authority, and the third party trusts the Notary Public to verify your signature, your word. In digital Notarisation you are the first party, the upload/notarisation site is the authority, and the third party can verify the event by use of the shared keys.
But there’s a catch. In the real world we rely on the integrity of the Notary Public, a known person of legal standing, in whom both parties are willing to trust. In the digital world our trust in the upload/notarisation site authority is more difficult to assure. This may be a bank, a regulator, a health authority, a government department, or even a ticket agent, and our trust and more importantly the trust of the third party may not be guaranteed against error, fraud, or hacking.
That’s where Blockchain comes in. By storing the digital notarisation keys in Blockchain we immediately distribute the trust. Even if the bank, or the regulator or government department is hacked the keys that authenticate the event or document to a third party are distributed across the Blockchain network.
This means that the trust element, is distributed. There is no reliance on trust in one source of verification (one Notary in the real world analogy) but instead that trust is spread across tens (or thousands) of Blockchain nodes/servers at the same time. Trust is distributed digitally so that there is no need to trust one source.
For Regulated Market Operators, Exchanges and Investment Banks as well as Central Banks, Regulators and Authorities across all services, Notarization with all its attendant protocols will be the standard for all interactions and transactions as surely as getting a printed receipt for even the smallest purchase has been in the real world.
Digital Notarisation is core pillar of pTools transport layer and data management functionality. For more see www.pTools.com