(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 (system) to allow the online filing of many business documents required to be filed with the Secretary of State.

(2) The system 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.

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

(4) System users are required to set up an 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.

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

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

(7) The system 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.

(8) Users submitting a business filing that is rejected by the Secretary of State have 100 days to resubmit the document or it will be removed from the electronic repository that holds documents during the working stage of the filing process.