Ballot CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction
The Intellectual Property Review (IPR) period for Ballot CSC-31 (Ballot CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction) has completed.
No IPR Exclusion Notices were filed, and the ballot is adopted as of November 17, 2025.
The new CSC BRs v3.10.0 have been published to the CABF public website in accordance with the Bylaws: https://cabforum.org/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum-CSCBR-3.10.0.pdf
IPR Review of Ballot CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction
This Review Notice is sent pursuant to Section 4.1 of the CA/Browser Forum’s Intellectual Property Rights Policy (v1.3). This Review Period of 30 days is for one Final Maintenance Guidelines. The complete Draft Maintenance Guideline that is the subject of this Review Notice is attached to this email.
Summary of Review
Ballot for Review: https://cabforum.org/2025/11/17/ballot-csc-31-maximum-validity-reduction/. A redline is available at https://cabforum.org/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum-CSCBR-3.10.0-Redline.pdf
- Start of Review Period: 2025-10-14 08:00:00 UTC
- End of Review Period: 2025-11-13 08:00:00 UTC
Members with any Essential Claim(s) to exclude must forward a written Notice to Exclude Essential Claims to the Working Group Chair (Stephen Davidson) and also submit a copy to the CA/B Forum public mailing list (public@groups.cabforum.org) before the end of the Review Period. For details, please see the current version of the CA/Browser Forum Intellectual Property Rights Policy. (An optional template for submitting an Exclusion Notice is available at https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Template-for-Exclusion-Notice.pdf)
Results of Ballot CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction
The voting period for CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction has completed. The ballot has: PASSED
Voting Results
Certificate Issuers 9 votes in total:
- 7 voting YES: Asseco Data Systems SA (Certum), DigiCert, eMudhra, HARICA, IdenTrust, Sectigo, SSL.com
- 0 voting NO:
- 2 ABSTAIN: Actalis S.p.A., GlobalSign
Certificate Consumers 1 votes in total:
- 1 voting YES: Microsoft
- 0 voting NO:
- 0 ABSTAIN:
Bylaws Requirements
- Bylaw 2.3(6) requires:
- In order for a ballot to be adopted by the Forum, two‐thirds (2/3) or more of the votes cast by the Voting Members in the Certificate Issuer category must be in favour of the ballot. This requirement was MET.
- at least fifty percent (50%) plus one (1) of the votes cast by the Voting Members in the Certificate Consumer category must be in favour of the ballot. This requirement was MET.
- At least one (1) Voting Member in each category must vote in favour of a ballot for the ballot to be adopted. This requirement was MET.
- Bylaw 2.3(7) requires:
- A ballot result will be considered valid only when more than half of the number of currently active Voting 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 (3) Forum Meetings and Forum Teleconferences.
- the quorum was 11 for this ballot. This requirement was MET.
This ballot now enters the IP Rights Review Period to permit members to review the ballot for relevant IP rights issues. This will be notified in a separate email.
Ballot CSC-31: Maximum Validity Reduction
Summary:
This ballot updates the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly‐Trusted Code Signing Certificates“ version 3.9 in order to reduce the maximum certificate validity, from 39 months to 460 days, effective March 1st, 2026.
The following motion has been proposed by Karina Sirota Goodley and Nate Santiago of Microsoft and endorsed by Martijn Katerbarg of Sectigo and Scott Rea of eMudhra.
— Motion Begins —
This ballot updates the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly‐Trusted Code Signing Certificates” (“Code Signing Baseline Requirements”) based on version 3.9. MODIFY the Code Signing Baseline Requirements as specified in the following redline: https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/compare/f8b33ccb21fea80a0859b51f9ab2f141fc56a070...3486bf6c44079a1ede1101801ebf32c10899ae89
— Motion Ends —
This ballot proposes a Final Maintenance Guideline. The procedure for approval of this ballot is as follows:
Discussion (at least 7 days)
Start Time: 2025-09-16 18:00 UTC
End Time: 2025-10-06 18:00 UTC
Voting for Approval
Start Time: 2025-10-06 18:00 UTC
End Time: 2025-10-13 18:00 UTC
IP Review (30 Days)