Ballot SMC03: Corrections and clarifications for “S/MIME Baseline Requirements”

The Intellectual Property Review (IPR) period for Ballot SMC03 (Corrections and clarifications for “S/MIME Baseline Requirements”) has completed. No IPR Exclusion Notices were filed, and the ballot is adopted as of August 11, 2023. SMC03 becomes effective at the same time as the S/MIME BR on September 01, 2023.

The S/MIME Baseline Requirements version 1.0.1 is available from here in accordance with the Bylaws.

NOTICE OF REVIEW PERIOD – BALLOT SMC03

This Review Notice is sent pursuant to Section 4.1 of the CA/Browser Forum’s Intellectual Property Rights Policy (v1.3). This 30-day Review Period is for the Final Maintenance Guideline that is attached to this Review Notice.

Ballot for Review: Ballot SMC03 Start of Review Period: July 12, 2023 End of Review Period: 1700 UTC on August 11, 2023

Please forward a written notice to exclude Essential Claims by email to and a copy to the CA/B Forum public mailing list before the end of the Review Period.

See current version of CA/Browser Forum Intellectual Property Rights Policy for details. See also /about/ipr-policy/. An optional format for an Exclusion Notice is available at /uploads/Template-for-Exclusion-Notice.pdf.

Voting Results

The voting period for Ballot SMC03 (Corrections and clarifications for “S/MIME Baseline Requirements”) has completed, and the ballot has passed.

Certificate Issuers

21 votes total, with no abstentions:

21 Issuers voting YES: Actalis S.p.A., Asseco Data Systems SA (Certum), Buypass AS, Chunghwa Telecom, DigiCert, D-TRUST, eMudhra, Entrust, GDCA, GlobalSign, HARICA, IdenTrust, MSC Trustgate Sdn Bhd, OISTE Foundation, SECOM Trust Systems, Sectigo, SSL.com, SwissSign, TWCA, VikingCloud, Visa

0 Issuers voting NO

0 Issuers ABSTAIN

Certificate Consumers

2 votes total, with no abstentions:

2 Consumers voting YES: Mozilla, rundQuadrat

0 Consumers voting NO

0 Consumers ABSTAIN

Bylaws Requirements

Bylaw 2.3(f) requires:

A “yes” vote by two-thirds of Certificate Issuer votes and by 50%-plus-one of Certificate Consumer votes. Votes to abstain are not counted for this purpose. This requirement was MET for Certificate Issuers and MET for Certificate Consumers.

At least one Certificate Issuer and one Certificate Consumer Member must vote in favor of a ballot for the ballot to be adopted. This requirement was MET.

Bylaw 2.3(g) requires that a ballot result only be considered valid when “more than half of the number of currently active Members has participated”. The number of currently active Voting Members is the average number of Voting Member organizations that have participated in the previous three meetings. Votes to abstain are counted in determining quorum. The quorum was 7 for this ballot. This requirement was MET.

Purpose of Ballot

The ballot proposes text to clarify certain sections and to make corrections in other sections of v1.0.0 of the S/MIME Baseline Requirements. The affected sections include:

• Transition for Extant S/MIME CAs in Definitions, 7.1.2.2, and Appendix B • Clarification of Enterprise RA capabilities in 1.3.2.1 • Updated Mailbox Address definition in 1.3.3 • Updated Pseudonym reference in 3.1.1, 3.1.3, 7.1.4.2.2 (a), and 9.4.2 • Enterprise RA reference clarifications in 3.2.4, 3.2.4.2 (6), and 3.28 • Cleaning up of numbering in 4.9.1.1 • Addition of keyUsages for EdDSA Certificates in 7.1.2.3 (e) • Clarification of LEI in 7.1.2.3 (l) • Clarification of ISO code in organizationIdentifier in 7.1.4.2.2 (a) • Clarification of ETSI audit requirements in 8.4 • Minor text corrections

The following motion has been proposed by Stephen Davidson of DigiCert and endorsed by Martijn Katerbarg of Sectigo and Christophe Bonjean of GlobalSign.

Motion begins

This ballot modifies the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted S/MIME Certificates” (“S/MIME Baseline Requirements”) resulting in Version 1.0.1.

The proposed modifications to the S/MIME Baseline Requirements may be found at https://github.com/srdavidson/smime/compare/ba234cef9a443716e09d2fd2dcb715b8b709dd61…a6a1e287c3511f40c86d6cd2a1596889413e73d8.

The SMCWG Chair or Vice-Chair is permitted to update the Relevant Dates and Version Number of the S/MIME Baseline Requirements to reflect final dates.

Motion ends

This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline. The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:

Discussion (9 days) Start Time: 26 June 2023 17:00 UTC End Time: 5 July 2023 17:00 UTC

Vote for approval (7 days) Start Time: 5 July 2023 17:00 UTC End Time: 12 July 2023 17:00 UTC

IPR Review (30 days)