Web of Trust

I sent off my application to become a Thawte Web of Trust Notary this morning, having spent some of yesterday morning getting my identity confirmed by bank managers the length and breadth of the 99 bus route.

It wasn't too difficult getting someone to do it in St. Andrews, but at what is technically my branch in Dundee, they weren't keen.

Apparently the Bank of Scotland now has a policy of not confirming identities for people unless they are personally known. Although it's my branch, I probably haven't passed its portals within a couple of years, so no surprise that they weren't keen on that basis. However, I eventually got the manager to read the form, which explicitly only requires them to confirm that my passport and driving licence photos look like me, not that they personally know me to be the person concerned, and everything turned out OK.

Assuming that both I and tobyaw are approved without any further hassle, then we'll have two local WOT notaries who can confirm identities for other users, to ease the banks' heavy workloads. Given that the nearest notaries are currently in Edinburgh, this seems like a step forward.