Legal & compliance framework

getnotaryo is software. The notarial act itself is performed by your firm's commissioned notary public, who remains the only legal author of the act. Everything the software does is in service of helping your notary stay compliant with the Rules. Below is the regulatory framework we follow.

2004 Rules on Notarial Practice (A.M. No. 02-8-13-SC)

The foundational rules. Our register data model and numbering algorithm implement Rule VI directly. Doc. No. resets each calendar year per §2(e); Page No. continues within the active bound book; Book No. is in Roman numerals and advances when a ~100-page volume fills; Series of [year] tracks the calendar year.

March 2025 amendments (OCA Circular No. 197-2025)

The amendments add a mandatory digital-reporting channel. Notaries must register a professional email-of-record with the Executive Judge, and send a certified copy of each month's register entries plus duplicate-original PDFs of each instrument to the Clerk of Court within the first ten days of the following month. getnotaryo generates these PDFs automatically and lets you send them from your email-of-record with one click.

The Rules also prohibit collecting any fee for digitization or transmittal. We pass this through unchanged — no digitization surcharge is ever added to your client's bill.

2025 Rules on Electronic Notarization (A.M. No. 24-10-14-SC)

The 2025 Rules permit In-Person Electronic Notarization (IEN) and Remote Electronic Notarization (REN) by accredited Electronic Notary Publics through accredited Electronic Notarization Facility Providers. The electronic notarial book is a separate counter from the paper register, integrated with the SC Central Notarial Database.

getnotaryo supports IEN today (your notary needs the separate ENP accreditation). REN unlocks once getnotaryo itself becomes an accredited ENFP — application is in progress.

Data privacy

We comply with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (R.A. 10173). All personal data is encrypted at rest (AWS KMS), in transit (TLS 1.3), and access is logged. The full privacy policy describes what we collect and why.

Terms of service

The terms governing your firm's subscription and use of the product are at getnotaryo.app/terms.

Documents we cannot help with

The Rules exclude certain documents from notarization without physical presence, and from electronic notarization at all. We refuse to draft these in the application: notarial wills (Civil Code Art. 804), marriage contracts (Family Code Art. 7), depositions, and certain high-value real estate transactions over PHP 1,000,000.