[meowface]

Any such data notary/escrow company has a pretty good shot of eventually getting breached (they'd naturally be a prime target, since the attackers could get tons of data from tons of people on behalf of tons of different companies), and that'll possibly destroy that company and maybe also your app. There's also the risk they may eventually have rogue employees, etc.

[hunter2_]

Regular notaries could be as crooked as rogue employees, yet we still use them because imperfect barriers are still barriers (as with security).

But yeah, when computer-related vulnerabilities are thrown into the mix, it could get ugly.

[meowface]

Sure, there's often going to be some centralized source one needs to trust. The issue with a digital escrow vendor is kind of like the issue with cryptocurrency exchanges - one single breach and you immediately walk out with an unfathomably huge treasure trove.

A rogue notary employee can do some damage and notarize things in exchange for bribes, and a rogue bank employee could help siphon some money away, but a rogue digital escrow employee could be bribed to hand over terabytes of extremely sensitive data on lots of big customers, and a rogue cryptocurrency exchange employee could possibly help someone steal hundreds of millions of dollars pretty easily. It's a huge house of cards.