Digital Seals

Required permission: approvals.write (Compliance group)

A digital seal is issued to a notary after their application reaches Approved status. The seal is applied to completed notarisation certificates to prove authenticity and is linked to the notary's Supreme Court Number (SCN).

Issuing a Seal

Seals are not issued automatically on approval. A compliance officer must explicitly assign a seal:

1. Go to Digital Seals in the sidebar
2. Find the notary (search by name or email)
3. Verify their approval status is Approved — you cannot issue a seal to an unapproved notary
4. Click Issue Seal
5. Confirm — the seal is generated and linked to the notary's account

The notary receives a notification that their seal is ready. They can view it in their portal under Seal Setup.

Chief Registrar reference number

The Issue Digital Seal modal requires a Chief Registrar Reference Number — the identifier issued by the Chief Registrar when the seal was granted, in the form NPA/CR/2025/0042. It is mandatory; the modal refuses an empty value.

Enter it exactly as issued. It is shown to the notary, on their Digital Seal page, as read-only text — they cannot correct it themselves, so a typo here has to come back to an administrator to fix.

What the Seal Contains

Per the Supreme Court of Nigeria seal guide:

• Notary's full name (arced across the top)
• Supreme Court Number (arced across the bottom)
• Red foil-wafer border with jagged edges
• A QR code is embedded at signing time per session — it is not static on the seal template

Revoking a Seal

Revoking a seal prevents the notary from applying it to any future sessions. Existing completed sessions are not affected.

Reasons to revoke:

• Notary is suspended or struck off by NPN
• Notary requests account closure
• Fraudulent use detected

Steps:

1. Open the notary's record in Digital Seals
2. Click Revoke Seal
3. Enter a reason (recorded in the audit log)
4. Confirm

Revocation is logged in the audit trail. The notary is notified by email.

Seal Verification

Clients and third parties can verify a notarised document by scanning the QR code embedded in the certificate. This routes to /verify/:certId — a public page that shows the session details, notary credentials, and document hash.