Case studies

Business impact

On demand access to authenticated land deeds, mortgages and titles for citizens, notaries, banks and corporations, which can help speed up business transactions while keeping them more secure.

Issue

In the Alsace and Moselle jurisdictions of eastern France, land ownership records have been kept completely local for years and remain documented on paper. These records need to be updated and signed by a judge after each transaction in order to become legally valid. The records – kept in large paper volumes at the local courthouses – are available to the public and business professionals who use them. This system, which has been working for generations, needed to evolve to be able to keep up with modern-day demands on time.

Executive summary

GILFAM, the public organization whose mission is to automate the land registry in this area of France, engaged IBM to design, develop and run a system that would allow transactions to be made online, as well as maintain the authenticity of the transactions. In automating the land registry, GILFAM needed to find a way to make land titles and deeds available on demand, but only to those who need them. With electronic ownership deeds replacing paper records, authenticity and security were of primary concern. IBM designed and built an innovative information system to serve as the legal reference and clearinghouse for the owner of each piece of land. The system will eventually allow access to land ownership records via the Internet, and notaries will be able to electronically submit requests for publication of land ownership transactions. Because notaries will no longer have to travel to local courthouses to have transactions registered, business will move much faster. Moreover, banks can gain access to the data from their offices with an agreement given by the registered owner.

While the land registry reference is meant to be public and available to everyone, it must also be safeguarded against misuse. Within the application, access will be regulated in a legal framework that takes privacy into consideration, in order to protect individuals from unauthorized access to their documents. It is especially crucial that only judges be allowed to validate updates to land records. As with paper land titles, there needed to be a way to maintain the authenticity of those in a digitized format. So IBM developed an electronic signature system using biometrics. The only way a transaction can be unlocked and changed is with the biometric of a judge’s fingerprint. This authentication with a judge’s electronic signature will remain secure for at least 30 years. Similar capabilities can be useful for other agencies that require official approvals or notarizing of online documents.

What IBM did

IBM has been involved in the entire scope of the project to digitize the Alsace-Moselle land registry, including application specification, design and development, and providing change management consulting to lead the transition from a paper-based to a highly automated, electronic system. The highly available hardware and software infrastructure will be kept secure with carefully controlled access to the information. To maintain the authenticity of the transactions, GILFAM wanted to make sure only judges can validate the online transactions, just as they have always signed a new page for each paper transaction. IBM developed an electronic signature system, whereby the server performs its signature calculation in a secure environment, and, on the client side, the identity of the judge is verified using a fingerprint. The signature calculation will be processed on a Java™ technology card.

Capabilities applied

IBM Research Services helps clients transform to a real-time, on demand business model that responds to changing demands by analyzing their business challenges and developing innovative ways to address them. GILFAM is using IBM Global Business Services and IBM Research Services to transform to an on demand business by making its land registry available online and providing the tools to help them meet security needs of the registry and authenticity of land transactions.