The Chairman of the Federal Notary Chamber Konstantin Korsik noted during the session that the development and implementation of information technologies has been one of the priority areas of work of the Russian notary for ten years. Safe and convenient transactions in the “one-stop shop” format, the assignment of notaries the status of registry offices of the registration authorities, online notarial services – all these are the fruits of active work in the IT field, he stressed. The basis of the “digital notary” was the Unified Notarial Information System, which contains records of all notarial acts in the country.
According to him, the project of universal registration with a notary is currently being actively implemented, which has made it possible to eliminate queues at notary offices. You can register both on the State Services portal and on mos.ru. Within the framework of the improvement of the Unified Information System, the issue of introducing artificial intelligence into the work of notaries is being considered.
“We also cooperate with other legal specialists, with registrars and with the tax service. I think that we will be able to establish electronic interaction with notaries from countries such as Iran, China and Brazil. As a result, our business volume and cultural exchange will increase. All Russian citizens visit these countries more often, so of course some kind of unification is needed so that documents can be verified electronically,” Konstantin Korsik noted.
According to the president of the FNP, from January to July 2024, the number of remote transactions certified by notaries increased by 1.8 times and remote notarial actions by 1.5 times. Free public notarial registers are also in demand: the number of requests exceeds 58 million requests per year.
A special role in speeding up the implementation of legally significant actions was played by the established electronic exchange of information with departments, Korsik noted. A good example is the interaction between notaries and Rosreestr: today, the time for recording rights in notarial documents usually does not exceed 5-6 hours. For comparison, in 2012 (before the notary launched its Unified Information System) it was 30 days.
When developing digital technologies, it is important to exchange best practices and analyse the experience of other countries. Interaction with notaries of the BRICS countries is one of the priorities of the FNP’s international leadership, Konstantin Korsik noted. “We could also establish electronic interaction between notaries, strive for ‘seamlessness’, for example by using an electronic apostille system in the BRICS countries,” he suggested.
Lyudmila Markina, member of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, shared the experience of the Central Election Commission of Russia in the field of using digital technologies in the electoral process, spoke about the main digital technologies used: mobile voter and SDR, electronic voting.
“The most important norms that need to be introduced into electoral legislation within the framework of cooperation between the BRICS member countries are the protection of electoral rights of all categories of citizens,” stressed Lyudmila Markina.
Professor Wu Wenfang drew the attention of the session participants to aspects of China’s existing legislative framework and key systems for protecting digital data. He pointed out that the size of China’s digital economy is nearly 42.8% of GDP. According to him, these indicators continue to grow and the data market is also developing.
“Part of our national development strategy is to support digital technologies. The People’s Republic of China has three main laws: on cybersecurity, on data security and on personal data protection. However, there are regulations at the administrative level, for example, there are regulatory measures to protect critical infrastructure,” said Wu Wenfang.
Badela Gandhi, a member of the Johannesburg Law Society (South Africa), also proposed strengthening cooperation within the BRICS, and dedicated her report to the challenges of digital technologies, in particular artificial intelligence. The pace of AI proliferation is rapid, she stressed. AI can influence human emotions and choices, including professional ones. Therefore, the state must have tools to regulate technology to prevent violations of citizens’ rights and various types of abuse, Gandhi added. Another problematic issue in the field of “digital law”, in her opinion, is the question of free will. How to ensure that a person using information technologies really accepts the terms of use? How to understand that their rights are not violated and their actions correspond to their will? On these and other issues of regulation in the digital space, it is necessary to develop a unified position, she concluded.
It should be noted that the organizer of the 9th BRICS Legal Forum is the Russian Bar Association. The forum is held at the MGIMO University of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
