Document Authentication

Iowa’s Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (UELMA) enacted in 2019 Iowa Acts, ch. 92, was implemented on January 9, 2020. Under the Act, a member of the public accessing a document on the General Assembly’s website may authenticate the document. A document subject to authentication at least includes legal material which is an edition, or part of an edition, of an official legal publication made available to the public on General Assembly’s website on and after the Act’s implementation date. By authenticating a document, a member of the public determines that the legal material is unaltered from the legal material stored as custodial information in a secure electronic repository controlled and maintained by the Legislative Services Agency and used to produce print and electronic versions of the edition as provided in Iowa Code chapter 2B. The following is a list of editions of official legal publications (produced in PDF format) that may be authenticated:

• Iowa Constitution - Codified that is produced as part of the 2020 and later editions of the Iowa Code and includes amendments ratified on and after 2010 (authentication of the entire document).
• Iowa Code for the 2020 and later editions (authentication by volume, chapter, and section).
• Iowa Acts for the 2019 and later editions (authentication by chapter).
• Iowa Administrative Code for the December 4, 2019, and later editions (authentication by chapter and rule).
• Iowa Administrative Bulletin for the December 4, 2019, and later editions (authentication of the entire document).

Below are the steps to authenticate a document:

• Click the 'Choose file' button to browse to the location of the file stored in your computer that needs to be validated.
• Click 'Authenticate' to validate if document is an official document.