Ballot 145 – Operational Existence for Government Entities

Ballot 145 – Operational Existence for Government Entities

Reason

Because government entities aren’t operating as businesses, they are often not listed with a QIIS, especially immediately after the entity is created by either statute or order. The legal existence of these entities is verifiable through a QGIS, but this source in many countries (especially Arabic and African countries) does not always list a date of creation of these entities. Operational existence exists to ensure organizations aren’t fly-by-night scams/phishing entities. With government entities, these same risks are not present as they are created directly by government action.

Jeremy Rowley of DigiCert made the following motion, which was endorsed by Rich Smith of Comodo and Cecilia Kam of Symantec.

Motion begins

Effective immediately, section 11.6.1 is modified as follows:

11.6.1 Verification Requirements.

The CA MUST verify that the Applicant has the ability to engage in business by verifying the Applicant’s, or Affiliate/Parent/Subsidiary Company’s, operational existence. The CA MAY rely on its verification of a Government Entity’s legal existence under Section 11.2 as verification of a Government Entity’s operational existence.

Motion Ends

The review period for this ballot shall commence at 2200 UTC on 19 Feb 2015, and will close at 2200 UTC on 26 Feb 2015. Unless the motion is withdrawn during the review period, the voting period will start immediately thereafter and will close at 2200 UTC on 5 Mar 2015. 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 greater than 50% of the votes cast by members in the browser category must be in favor. Quorum is currently nine (9) members– at least nine members must participate in the ballot, either by voting in favor, voting against, or abstaining.