The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Friday it is prepared to roll out its own blockchain-based platform, the Verification of Electronic Records and Information Trust and Authentication System (VERITAS), to enhance the security and integrity of reports and other documents filed by corporations.
The system will use public-key cryptography to allow the public to securely sign and authenticate SEC-related documents, it said.
VERITAS is designed to record digital signing events on a decentralized ledger, ensuring immutability, timestamping and cryptographic verification.
SEC chairman Francis Lim said the goal is to strengthen the integrity and reliability of submitted reports and documents by making them “immutable, permanent and indestructible.”
Once the draft guidelines are finalized, the SEC plans to immediately deploy VERITAS for public use. The agency also hopes the initiative will allow other government agencies to evaluate the benefits of blockchain technology and its potential application in their operations.
The new system will replace the one-time passwords currently used to authenticate documents under the Electronic Submission Authentication Portal (eSAP) with end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication and cryptographic signing mechanisms utilizing the user’s private key.
Lim said the shift will “ensure that only authorized individuals can sign documents, thereby preventing unauthorized access, tampering or forgery.”
VERITAS also reaffirms the SEC’s commitment to digital transformation by making transactions more secure and efficient, reducing paperwork and cutting processing time, Lim said.
The draft rules seek to integrate VERITAS into the SEC’s existing digital identity and credentialing system, the Electronic SEC Universal Registration Environment (eSECURE) and the eSAP platform.
The SEC allows corporations to register through a fully online process, eliminating the need for wet signatures and notarized documents. During the initial phase, the SEC plans to make VERITAS an optional requirement to ease adoption but may mandate its use for specific filings or entities in the future.
