TheLand
Registry'se-conveyancing projectwill go live in
early summer following the introduction of a
public key infrastructure (PKI)system that
will guarantee the authenticity of property transaction
documents.
The Land Registry is the government agency that records who owns
Britain's land and buildings. Its e-conveyancing system has been 10
years in development. It aims to make buying and selling houses
easier and more certain.
Authorised parties will be able to exchange information quickly,
securely and reliably with each other and the Land Registry.
Documents will be encrypted and "signed" with a digital
certificate, and people will require a secure token, username and
password to produce and read the documents.
Property and mortgage registrations will be instant, funds
transferred immediately, securely and reliably, and up-to-date and
accurate information available on the progress of all linked
conveyancing transactions.
John Wright, Land Registry's director of information systems,
said it has retained IBM as
the system integrator of the PKI system.
Final testing is underway and when it goes live, expected in
early summer, it will be able to process up to 300,000 documents a
day and support up to half a million security "certificates" from
property professionals such as conveyance attorneys. Wright said
initial volumes would be much lower. "By April 2009, we are
planning for around 13,000 certificates and 30,000 signatures," he
said.
Wright said Land Registry will use IBM's Tivoli access
management software,
Entrust's certificate
management software and
Activeidentity will
supply the USB-based smart card tokens that authenticate the users'
transactions. Former government defence research agency
QinetiQ provided independent
advice.
Wright said the Land Registry has "consulted widely and worked
closely" with the Law
Society, the
Council of Mortgage
Lenders and the Government
Gateway to frame an effective user agreement to govern each
party's rights and responsibilities pertaining to the PKI system,
especially key security.
The Land Registry will manage a central authority that issues
the certificates that let the parties to a property deal sign
electronically documents such as transfers or mortgages.
Legal firms and conveyancing organisations will identify,
appoint specifically and train local administrators under a new
role-based access framework. Administrator access to the system
will depend on two-factor authentication using cryptographic tokens
as well as username and passwords.