South Carolina Code of Regulations
Chapter 113 - SECRETARY OF STATE
Article 3 - UNIFORM REAL PROPERTY RECORDING ACT
Section 113-300 - Definitions

A. "ACH" (automated clearing house) means a network processing and delivery system that provides for the distribution and settlement of electronic credits and debits among financial institutions.

B. "Authentication" means the act of tying an action or result to the person claiming to have performed the action. Authentication generally requires a password or encryption key to perform, and the process will fail if the password or key is incorrect.

C. "Authorized filer" means a party who has entered into a MOU with a register pursuant to the regulations herein.

D. "Digital electronic document" means an instrument containing information that is created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means, but not created in original paper form.

E. "Digitized electronic document" means a scanned image of the original document.

F. "Document" means recorded information regardless of medium or characteristics that is:

G. "E-government" means government's use of information technology to conduct business or exchange information with citizens, businesses or other federal, state and local government offices.

H. "Electronic" as defined in the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic or similar capabilities.

I. "Electronic document" means a document that is received by a register in an electronic form.

J. "Electronic recording delivery system" means an automated electronic recording system implemented by a register for recording instruments, and for returning to the party requesting the recording, digitized or digital electronic instruments.

K. "Electronic signature" means an electronic sound, symbol or process attached to or logically associated with a document and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the document.

L. "FTP" means file transport protocol.

M. "HTTPS" means hypertext transport protocol secure.

N. "Instrument" means any deed or other document in recordable form in accordance with S.C. Code Section 30-5-30.

O. "Memorandum of understanding" (MOU) means a legal document outlining the terms and details of an agreement between parties, including each parties requirements and responsibilities.

P. "Metadata" means "data about data"; it is information that describes another set of data. Metadata is descriptive information that facilitates the management of and access to other information. In the electronic recording context, metadata may be generated automatically or created manually and it may be internal or external to the digital object itself. Regardless of how it is created or stored, maintaining accurate and reliable metadata is essential to the long-term preservation of electronic recordings.

Q. "MISMO" means mortgage industry standards maintenance organization.

R. "PDF"(portable document format) means a file format created for document exchange. PDF is a fixed-layout document format used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system.

S. "PDF/A" means a subset of PDF that is an electronic document file format for long-term preservation of electronic documents that ensures the documents can be reproduced the exact same way in years to come. A key element is the requirement for PDF/A documents to be 100 percent self-contained. All of the information necessary for displaying the document in the same manner every time is embedded in the file. This includes, but is not limited to, all content (text, raster images and vector graphics), fonts, and color information.

T. "PRIA" means the Property Records Industry Association. PRIA is a not-for-profit association representing business and government members of the property records industry. The main goal of the association is to facilitate recordation and access to public real property records through research and the development and implementation of national standards and systems for the industry.

U. "PKI" (public key infrastructure) means a method of enabling a user of an unsecured public network such as the Internet to securely and privately exchange data and money through the use of a public and a private cryptographic key pair that is obtained and shared through a trusted authority. The public key infrastructure provides for a digital certificate that can identify an individual or an organization and directory services that can store and, when necessary, revoke the certificates.

V. "Register" means a Register of Deeds, Clerk of Court or Register of Mesne Conveyances.

W. "Schema" means a method for specifying the structure and content of specific types of electronic documents which use XML.

X. "SMART DocTM" means a technical framework for representing documents in an electronic format. This format links data, the visual representation of the form, and signature. The visual representation of the documents can utilize a variety of technologies such as XHTML, PDF, and TIFF. Previously SMART docsTM were called eMortgage documents. In order to better describe the actual capabilities of the technology, the word "eMortgage" was replaced by the acronym "SMART" which represents: securable, manageable, achievable, retrievable, and transferable.

Y. "UETA" (Uniform Electronic Transaction Act) means a body of recommended legislation drafted in 1999 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) for adoption by state legislatures. UETA allows electronic documents and digital signatures to stand as equals with their paper counterparts. UETA was adopted in South Carolina in S.C. Code Section 26-6-10, et seq.

Z. "URPERA" (Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act) means a body of recommended legislation drafted in 2004 by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) for adoption by state legislatures. URPERA authorizes recorders to accept electronic documents for recording in accordance with established standards. South Carolina adopted URPERA in 2008 Act. No. 210.

AA. "XHTML" means extensible hypertext mark-up language.

BB. "XML" (extensible markup language) means a computer language used to create markup languages. XML allows developers to specify a document type definition or schema in order to devise new markup languages for general or specific uses.