9.2     Certificate authority

Issuing signature cards

A certificate authority (CA) issues signature cards. When requesting a signature card your identity must be proven, for example by the German Postident procedure. The signature card is then issued to the requestor and an unlocking process must be executed. Afterwards the signature card is valid for the given validity interval. On validation of an electronic signature the issuing certificate authority acknowledges the authenticity of the person, who has applied the signature.