For several years, notary services in Latvia have also been available virtually, but the digital environment creates increasingly greater security risks. The facial recognition system introduced by the Latvian Council of Sworn Notaries compares the customer’s facial features with the image contained in the identity document, thus allowing fraudsters to be avoided.
Verification of the identity of a natural person is essential in ensuring the performance of the functions of a sworn notary. Since 2018, sworn notaries perform this activity not only by receiving the client in their office in person, but also by video conference in the virtual notary’s office. It is the entry of sworn notaries into the digital environment that has forced us to reevaluate the existing identity verification methods, evaluate the risks and look for new solutions, as the digital environment creates increasingly greater identity security risks.
The idea of integrating the facial recognition system into the functionality of the video conference arose already at the first justice system hackathon “Go2SmartNotary” in 2018. After that, an in-depth analysis of the idea and development of the project implementation scenario took place. In 2021, real development began and in March 2022 it could be used on the “DigiNotārs” customer portal.
The facial recognition system is only one of the tools for verifying the identity of a natural person, which is used by a sworn notary in the video conference of the “DigiNotārs” client portal.
