Ballot 127 – Verification of Agency in EV Guidelines 11.7.2 (passes)
Voting on Ballot 127
We received Yes votes from Actalis, Buypass, DigiCert, GlobalSign, Logius PKIoverheid, OpenTrust, QuoVadis, SECOM, Symantec, Trend Micro, Trustwave, TurkTrust, WoSign, and Mozilla.
There were no Nay votes and no Abstentions. Therefore, Ballot 127 passes.
Version 1.4.9 of the EV Guidelines can be found here: EV SSL Certificate Guidelines Version 1.4.9
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This ballot was discussed previously by the EV Working Group and by the group in attendance at the face-to-face in Eilat.
A redlined version in PDF is attached – Ballot-127.
Cecilia Kam of Symantec made the following motion and Jeremy Rowley of Digicert and Kirk Hall of Trend Micro have endorsed it:
Reasons for proposed ballot
The EV Guidelines currently allow verification of agency through the applicant’s human resources department by calling an independently verified telephone number and verifying employment. This process does not always work smoothly. Often employment verification is outsourced to a third party service provider, or HR person refuses to answer without taking specific procedural steps, and CA ends up asking to speak with IT department or managers within applicant’s organization in order to obtain the needed confirmation.
The proponents of this ballot believe that the proposed modification to this method of confirmation (contacting others within the applicant’s organization, in addition to HR) is sufficiently trustworthy. This would still be performed by calling the applicant, at its publicly recognized phone number, and verifying employment of the applicant representative (Contract Signer or Certificate Approver) with someone other than the individual about whom the information is sought.
-MOTION BEGINS
Subsection (2)(A) of section 11.7.2 of the Extended Validation Guidelines (Acceptable Methods of Verification – Name, Title and Agency) would be amended as follows:
(2) Agency: The CA MAY verify the agency of the Contract Signer and the Certificate Approver by:
(A) Contacting the Applicant**[STRIKE–‘s Human Resources Department]** by phone or mail**[INSERT** ,] [STIKE (] at the phone number or address for the Applicant**[STRIKE–‘s Place of Business,]** [INSERT–obtained and] verified in accordance with [STRIKE–these Guidelines] [INSERT Section 11.4.1 or 11.4.2) and obtaining confirmation that the Contract Signer and/or the Certificate Approver, as applicable, is an employee; or . . .
The resulting subsection 11.7.2(2) would read as follows:
(2) Agency: The CA MAY verify the agency of the Contract Signer and the Certificate Approver by:
(A) Contacting the Applicant by phone or mail, at the phone number or address for the Applicant, obtained and verified in accordance with section 11.4.1 or 11.4.2, and obtaining confirmation that the Contract Signer and/or the Certificate Approver, as applicable, is an employee; or
-MOTION ENDS
The review period for this ballot shall commence at 2200 UTC on Thursday, July 3, 2014, and will close at 2200 UTC on Thursday, July 10, 2014.
Unless the motion is withdrawn during the review period, the voting period will start immediately thereafter and will close at 2200 UTC on Thursday, July 17, 2014.
Votes must be cast by posting an on-list reply to this thread.
A vote in favor of the motion must indicate a clear ‘yes’ in the response.
A vote against must indicate a clear ‘no’ in the response.
A vote to abstain must indicate a clear ‘abstain’ in the response. Unclear responses will not be counted.
The latest vote received from any representative of a voting member before the close of the voting period will be counted.
Voting members are listed here:
In order for the motion to be adopted, two thirds or more of the votes cast by members in the CA category and more than one half of the votes cast by members in the browser category must be in favor. Quorum is currently six (6) members– at least six members must participate in the ballot, either by voting in favor, voting against, or by abstaining for the vote to be valid.