2-20-107. Legal recognition for secured electronic records and secured electronic signatures in administrative proceedings. (1) This section applies only to contested case proceedings held pursuant to the Montana Administrative Procedure Act or a similar procedure held before a state agency in which rights are determined or duties are enforced on a case-by-case basis.
     (2) If, through a qualified security procedure, it can be verified that an electronic record or electronic signature has not been altered since a specified point in time, the electronic record or electronic signature must be considered to be a secure electronic record or secure electronic signature from the specified point in time to the time of verification, if the relying party establishes that the qualified security procedure was:
     (a) reasonable under the circumstances;
     (b) applied by the relying party in a trustworthy manner; and
     (c) reasonably in good faith relied upon by the relying party.
     (3) In an administrative proceeding involving a secure electronic record, it must be rebuttably presumed that the electronic record has not been altered since the specific point in time to which the secure status relates.
     (4) In an administrative proceeding involving a secure electronic signature, it must be rebuttably presumed that the secure electronic signature is the signature of the person to whom it correlates.
     (5) The effect of the presumptions provided in this section is to place on the party challenging the integrity of a secure electronic record or challenging the genuineness of a secure electronic signature both the burden of going forward with evidence to rebut the presumption and the burden of persuading the trier of fact that the nonexistence of the presumed fact is more probable than its existence.

     History: En. Sec. 7, Ch. 365, L. 1999.