It will take less time to authenticate public documents for overseas use from next year. This is due to an effort by the Singapore Academy of Law, in collaboration with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), to apply verifiable credential technology to the apostille process to enhance the efficiency, security, and reliability of document authentication.
Members of the public can upload documents online for digital verification at the SAL Legalisation Portal directly at their convenience. After verification, an e-Apostille, which is a digital certificate of authenticity, will be emailed to them within minutes.
The first phase of e-Apostille will cover documents issued by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), such as Business Profiles (BP) and Business Certificates (BC) (Incorporation/Registration). The new system taps on ACRA’s trustBar verification service to verify the authenticity of BPs/BCs before the legalisation of the documents and the issuance of the e-Apostille certification. Plans to support documents issued by other public agencies will be announced in due course.
The e-Apostille service will cost $10.70 per document, which is the same as the cost of physically authenticating documents. SAL will continue to issue physical Apostilles as required.
“e-Apostille marks the latest step in SAL’s efforts to use technology to benefit, and bring greater convenience to our members and the public. Going digital will quicken the turnaround of documents and reduce the administrative burden for businesses and members of the public,” said Yeong Zee Kin, SAL’s chief executive.
With this effort, Singapore becomes an early adopter of the e-Apostille Framework, which is based on the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Verifiable Credentials (VC) specifications. “By aligning with the W3C VC standard, we can better integrate and ensure worldwide recognition of Singapore-issued e-Apostilles, fostering international legal cooperation and trade,” says Leong Der Yao, assistant chief executive, Sectoral Transformation Group, IMDA.
