Entrust Customers

Teranet's Online Land Registry System Makes Legal Process Quicker and Easier

Toronto-based Teranet, Inc. is an e-commerce company that develops business-to-government (B2G) and business-to-business (B2B) e-service solutions that enable organizations to greatly enhance the services they provide to their customers. With a unique combination of capabilities and state-of-the-art systems, Teranet is at the forefront of delivering service potential in the land, legal, and financial services industries as well as enabling electronic government service delivery.

One of Teranet's biggest projects has been the complete modernization of the land registry system for the province of Ontario. They have moved what was once a paper based, manual process, requiring lawyers to physically search archives to what is now an electronic system. Moving the millions of paper based records into an electronic format that is catalogued and can be searched was the first step. Records for over 70% of the province's properties are now electronic.

The next phase of the project focused on completing the transactional process of a land registry application and writs of execution electronically. Two main issues faced Teranet as they developed the plan for moving this process online - how to ensure that both the accountability and integrity of the old paper based system could be translated and maintained into a new online process.

The Need
Moving a Complex Legal Process Online

Teranet had a long list of requirements to complete land registry transactions electronically. The system was absolutely mission-critical to both the province and the lawyers who do the land registry transaction. The systems had to deliver reliable uptime and meet stringent availability requirements.

In addition, the system had to be capable of providing the assurances of transaction integrity and producing the necessary audit records, required by both the legal community and government. Both of these key stakeholders are risk averse, focusing Teranet on finding a solution that would be easy to use and provide a high level of assurance of transactional security and integrity.


The Challenge
Teranet Evaluates the Options

As Teranet began to scope out the specific requirements for a security solution to provide transactional security three key areas of importance were discovered:

1. Authentication - Teranet needed a strong authentication solution, based on secured digital IDs, to verify that only those users with authorized credentials could have access to the land registry system.

2. Digital Signatures and Non-Repudiation - Digital signatures provide unique capabilities for securing digital information; for example, they enable the recipient to verify the authenticity of the information's originator. In addition, a verified digital signature confirms to the recipient that the information was not tampered with while in transit and originally signed by the originator. These two benefits of digital signatures were essential to Teranet to provide both the legal community and the government with the assurance that the online transactional process had the same level of integrity as the paper based process.

3. Encryption - Teranet needed to be sure that transactions could not be tampered with while in storage or in transit.

In addition to providing these three key parts of transaction security the system had to be easy to use for the community of lawyers who would be completing the transactions online. Since Teranet faced the challenge of signing up arms-length users, they needed a solution that would minimize the amount of setup and configuration time needed to enable those users to use the system. Given this set of requirements Teranet concluded that a Public Key Infrastructure such as the one provided by the Entrust Secure Data solution was the only suite of products that could meet their needs.

They selected Entrust based on the reputation and security expertise of the Entrust team and an impressive technical evaluation. As Teranet planned to run the system themselves and not outsource it, it was critical that they select a team that could provide support in the form of professional services as well.

The Solution

Teranet chose Entrust's market- leading Entrust Authority™ Security Manager and Entrust Authority™ Java Toolkit software to provide security for it's Windows-based, Teraview® desktop gateway application. Over 15,000 lawyers and other real estate professionals currently use Entrust digital identities for authentication, digital signatures and encryption within the Teraview gateway. With Entrust software, land registration documents and e-forms can be created, signed, submitted and receipted electronically by registered users, improving the integrity of land title information.

In addition, clients are able to access the system remotely using Entrust Entelligence™ Desktop Suite software that is used with Teranet's gateway software and provided to users by Teranet, without having to physically go to a Provincial Land Registry Office. This solution is becoming standardized across the Province of Ontario with over 17 counties and districts currently on board.


The Benefits
More and More Land Registry Transaction Now Completed Electronically

The Ontario Land Registration System has never been more automated and electronically secure than it is today - providing an auditable trail on all revisions to e-documents. This system has also proven to be incredibly efficient for government office staff, citizens, lawyers and other users. Lawyers no longer need to incur travel costs to land registry offices or endure long line-ups - all land transfer transactions and the accessing of data can be done from the comfort of their own offices, allowing them to be up to 5 times more productive. Teranet has powered over 2.6 million electronic registrations using its Teraview system with Entrust security. The system has a track record of 100% uptime and has met all of Teranet's requirements for availability.

Authentication and Data Protection Solutions

Entrust security products are trusted by security experts and are known for their reputation for reliability and manageability. Our innovative suite of authentication solutions include digital certificates (including device certificates), two factor authentication and token security products that provide trusted security for less. Entrust's data protection solutions can help organizations meet regulatory mandates such as FFIEC or PCI security. For this reason, business and governments alike rely on Entrust over other solution providers and certification authorities to meet and exceed rigorous IT security requirements.