Summary

This bill grants the Corporate Registrar authority to verify the identities of people searching or filing documents in Saskatchewan's public registries for cooperatives and non-profit corporations, allows the Registrar to determine which digital signature technologies are acceptable for registry filings, and authorizes regulations governing how registry information may be accessed, disclosed in bulk, or integrated with other data to develop products and services.

Saskatchewan's public registries for cooperatives and non-profits currently accept paper signatures and do not systematically verify who is searching or filing documents. This bill makes three main changes. First, it allows the Registrar to verify the identity of anyone searching the registry, submitting documents, or named in submitted documents, with identity verification information shared with police and the Canada Revenue Agency to assist investigations but not made public. Second, it allows the Registrar to decide which digital signature technologies are acceptable for electronic filings. Third, it creates regulation-making authority to govern bulk data access and to permit the integration of registry data with other information sources to develop commercial products and services, provided the use is consistent with original collection purposes or otherwise considered reasonable, justifiable, or in the public interest. The bill does not define what counts as reasonable, justifiable, or in the public interest, leaving those determinations to future regulations.