The apostille system was introduced to allow parties from other countries to verify a document was a true copy or was signed by a verified individual. The Hague Convention, which is where the Apostilles system started, was signed in 1961.

The world has changed a lot since 1961 so how do parties check to see if an Apostille can be trusted? Every Apostille Stamp has a unique identifying number and date on the stamp.

The Australian Government has a website https://orao.dfat.gov.au/pages/verifyapostille.aspx where you can enter the unique identifying number and the date on the stamp to find out the nature of the document. In this way parties in other countries can verify the document they have in their possession is the same as the document the Australian Government put an Apostille Stamp on.