Ballot SMC04: Addition of ETSI TS 119 411-6 to audit standards

The Intellectual Property Review (IPR) period for Ballot SMC04 (Addition of ETSI TS 119 411-6 to audit standards) has completed. No IPR Exclusion Notices were filed, and the ballot is adopted as of December 8, 2023.

The new S/MIME BR have also been published to the CABF public website in accordance with the Bylaws.

Intellectual Property Review: Notice of Review Period – BALLOT SMC04

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 SMC04 Start of Review Period: November 8, 2023 End of Review Period: 1700 UTC on December 8, 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.

Results of Ballot SMC04: Addition of ETSI TS 119 411-6 to audit standards

The voting period for Ballot SMC04 (Addition of ETSI TS 119 411-6 to audit standards) has completed, and the ballot has passed.

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

15 votes total, with no abstentions:

• 15 Issuers voting YES: Actalis, Buypass Chunghwa Telecom, DigiCert, D-Trust, eMudhra, Entrust, GlobalSign, HARICA, OISTE Foundation, SECOM, Sectigo, SSL.com, SwissSign, Telia
• 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

1. Bylaw 2.3(f) requires:
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 10 for this ballot. This requirement was MET.

This ballot now enters the 30-day IP Rights Review Period to permit members to review the ballot for relevant IP rights issues. The IP Rights Review Period ends at 1700 UTC on December 8, 2023.

Ballot SMC04: Addition of ETSI TS 119 411-6 to audit standards

Purpose of Ballot

The ballot proposes changes to the S/MIME Baseline Requirements, and in others to make corrections. The affected sections include:

• Clarify the Revisions table in section 1.2.1 to more clearly differentiate the effective date (publication of the version) from additional compliance dates; and
• Add ETSI TS 119 411-6 as an audit criteria in Sections 1.6.3, 8.4, and 8.6.

The following motion has been proposed by Stephen Davidson of DigiCert and endorsed by Dimitris Zacharopoulos of HARICA and Paul van Brouwershaven of Entrust.

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 1.0.2.

The proposed modifications to the S/MIME Baseline Requirements may be found at

https://github.com/cabforum/smime/compare/241e92cde85c25d7e0d4a5c70118ecadacd4d72b…c6916c7156a711b59f8e6790ff0ee0fedb7bd270.

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 (7 days)

Start Time: October 25, 2023 17:00 UTC

End Time: November 1, 2023 17:00 UTC