(1) Pursuant to 2-15-401 and 2-15-404, MCA, the Secretary of State has developed and partially implemented a statewide electronic filing system to allow the online filing of many business documents required to be filed with the Secretary of State.

(2) The online filing system is named SIMS, which is an acronym for the Secretary of State's information management system.

(3) The implemented first phase of SIMS allows the online filing of Uniform Commercial Code documents.

(4) SIMS is hosted in a PCI (payment card industry) compliant data center and day-to-day operational and security management is the responsibility of a contracted vendor.

(5) The SIMS application is built to accept and store properly entered data, allow later search capability of the system, and provide standardized reporting.

(6) SIMS users are required to set up a SIMS account through ePass (the state of Montana's online access portal), which identifies them for the purpose of authentication, unless the Secretary of State is granted an exception from complying with ePass policies or standards.

(7) Password complexity for online users is consistent with Department of Administration standards.

(8) State and federal law governing the filing of lien notices does not require signatures if the document is filed online.

(9) SIMS generates an image based on the information entered by the online user which contains a unique filing number and filing date/time and may be printed for the user's records.