In the Alsace and Moselle jurisdictions of eastern France, land ownership records had been stored locally in 46 courthouses offices for years. The handwritten records - kept in 40,000 paper volumes - are available to the public and to business professionals. The system had worked for a century, but the paperwork had become unwieldy and unsuitable for modern needs. French Ministry of Justice and the local authorities of Alsace & Moselle formed GILFAM with the expressed purpose of replacing paper documents with an automated system of electronic records. The organization's primary concerns were with ensuring security and proper authentication.

GILFAM engaged IBM Global Business Services On Demand Innovation Services (ODIS) to create a security-rich, online land registry system. IBM consultants designed and built an innovative information system to serve as the legal reference and clearinghouse for the owner of each piece of land. To help prevent unauthorized access to documents, IBM built a biometric authentication framework into the land registry application, requiring fingerprint verification for judges validating records.

By providing a completely electronic land registry, Gilfam is helping the Livre Foncier d'Alsace Moselle become more modern and efficient, improving convenience for citizens and businesses while reducing costs in the long term. The solution:

• Improves convenience for citizens and businesses while reducing costs in the long term - 2.5 million registrations are now online

• Means notaries will no longer have to travel to local courthouses to get copies and to register the 750,000 registration transactions processed per year

“Security was as important as convenience in designing the electronic land registry system. IBM addressed our concerns by creating a secure biometric identification system for authenticating judges’ signatures.”
Jean-Luc Vallens, President of Gilfam