The Scottish land registry is to issue free smartcards with digital signatures to up to 8,000 conveyancing solicitors north of the border, the Gazette can reveal.

Though the use of the smartcards will for now be limited to conveyancing solicitors, to allow them to link to the Registers of Scotland's planned Automated Registration of Title to Land system (ARTL), the system could be expanded in future to cover other forms of legal work.


Moving forward with digital signing ahead of the rest of the UK, which still appears to be in the dark about the need for it, brings Scotland further into line with the rest of the EU.


A spokesman for the Registers said: 'We figured out a good while back that [ARTL] would work with digital deeds, and digital deeds need digital signatures, and... it was actually the path of least resistance for us to give them out ourselves.'


The only cost to the solicitors will be a smartcard reader that will need to be connected to a computer. But the readers, according to the Registers, will be a low-cost unit in the region of £10.


For security and cost reasons, the Registers have locked the use of the smartcards to signing digital deeds, but there is no reason why the system cannot be expanded to allow lawyers to sign a range of documents.


'There's the potential a couple of years down the track for this to change,' said the Registers' spokesman. 'One of the big advantages is that we have to visit all solicitors' firms to sign them up for the ARTL system. So we will have a very, very strong level of authentication.'


This authentication will be attractive to any organisation that wishes to expand the system, as will the fact that the Registers is to conform with recognised EU standards.


The move takes lessons from the EU's directive on digital signatures, and follows in the footsteps of several EU countries, such as Austria and Spain, which have issued smartcards with digital signatures to all lawyers to bring closer entirely digital work.


The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) applauded the move. A spokeswoman said: 'The CCBE welcomes any electronic development which makes lawyers' work easier, provided that the level of security allows for secure communication and safeguards professional standards of the legal profession.'