Overview
Effective January 1, 2024, the Law Society’s temporary emergency measure allowing licensees to virtually verify client identity without authentication ended. Licensees must now authenticate an individual’s government-issued ID, meaning the licensee must use a process or method to determine if the ID is true and genuine and cannot do so virtually. Bylaw 7.1 (made under the Law Society Act) allows two methods of verification virtually: the credit file method and the dual process method. Licensees can also use an agent to verify identity. The Notice to the Profession dated July 27, 2023 and additional resources from the LSO can be found here.
Due to the COVID-19 public health measures and mobility restrictions, the LSO changed the requirement of in-person verification when verifying government-issued photo identification. This change enabled licensees to verify client identity by leveraging video conferencing technology and other virtual communication methods during the COVID-19 lockdown, ensuring that legal services remained accessible.
To assist in the authentication process, a variety of virtual authentication services are widely available to lawyers. This article identifies licensees’ requirements to virtually verify client identity via the government-issued photo identification method, and summarizes two virtual authentication services available, Treefort and DocuSign Identify.
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