The Digitalization of the Land Registry and Its Legal Challenges

Abstract

The digitalization of the land registry has, in recent years, become more than a purely technical issue. It represents a broader transformation that has a direct impact on legal certainty and the everyday efficiency of administrative procedures. Traditional paper-based processes increasingly struggle to keep pace with the expectations of citizens, professionals, and the economic environment. The new land registry system, the E-ING platform, introduced in 2025, seeks to respond to these demands by shifting the entire procedure to electronic foundations. This study examines the legal, technological, and data protection consequences of this transition. A key question is how public authenticity and evidentiary value can be preserved when documents no longer exist on paper but in digital form. Cybersecurity and compliance with the GDPR also play an essential role, as the land registry handles a large amount of sensitive information. The paper briefly reviews the practices of several European countries and explores the potential future application of technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Overall, it aims to identify how the system can be modernized while maintaining the high level of legal certainty that has characterized the Hungarian land registry for decades.