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Ballot SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

[IPR Review] Ballot SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

This Review Notice is sent pursuant to Section 4.1 of the CA/Browser Forum’s Intellectual Property Rights Policy (v1.4). 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 here.

Summary of Review

Ballot for Review: SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

Start of Review Period: 2026-08-25 23:00:00 UTC

End of Review Period: 2026-09-24 23:00:00 UTC

Members with any Essential Claim(s) to exclude must forward a written Notice to Exclude Essential Claims to the Working Group Chair and also submit a copy to the CA/B Forum public mailing list (email to public at 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)

[Voting Results] Ballot SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

The voting period for SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases has completed. The ballot has: PASSED

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

15 votes in total:

 * 15 voting YES: Actalis S.p.A., Asseco Data Systems SA (Certum), Deutsche Telekom Security GmbH, DigiCert, Disig, eMudhra, GlobalSign, HARICA, IdenTrust, SECOM Trust Systems, SSL.com, SwissSign, Telia Company, TrustAsia, TWCA  * 0 voting NO:  * 0 ABSTAIN:

Certificate Consumers

3 votes in total:

 * 3 voting YES: Apple, Mozilla, rundQuadrat  * 0 voting NO:  * 0 ABSTAIN:

Bylaws Requirements

  1. 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 favor 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 favor of the ballot. This requirement was MET.  * At least one (1) Voting Member in each category must vote in favor of a ballot for the ballot to be adopted. This requirement was MET.

  1. 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 9 for this ballot. This requirement was MET.

[Voting for Approval] Ballot SMC018: Realignment of Multipurpose use cases

Summary:

This ballot implements the requirements of CCADB Policy Section 6.3 relating to cross-certificates into the S/MIME BR effective immediately.

The ballot also specifies that effective July 1, 2027 id-kp-emailProtection (mandatory) and the id-kp-clientAuth (optional) are the only extKeyUsage (EKU) permitted in both Subordinate CA Certificates and Subscriber Certificates. Finally, the ballot clarifies in the Definitions that Legacy Generation profiles were deprecated effective July 15, 2025.

This ballot is proposed by Stephen Davidson (DigiCert) and endorsed by Dustin Hollinback (Apple) and Ashish Dhiman (GlobalSign)

— Motion Begins —

This ballot modifies the “Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted S/MIME Certificates” (“S/MIME Baseline Requirements”), based on Version 1.0.15.

MODIFY the Baseline Requirements as specified in the following Redline: https://github.com/cabforum/smime/compare/9ad1d24fb86b8ddbe9068122136117a4930c4b44...326bc03807283b3af1b6f702968ec23707ecada5

— 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: August 11, 2026 at 13:00:00 UTC

  • End time: August 18, 2026 at 13:00:00 UTC

Voting for Approval

  • Start time: August 18, 2026 at 17:00:00 UTC

  • End time: August 25, 2026 at 17:00:00 UTC

Latest releases
Server Certificate Requirements
SC098: Process RFC 8657 CAA Parameters - Jun 16, 2026

Code Signing Requirements
v3.8 - Aug 5, 2024

What’s Changed CSC-25: Import EV Guidelines to CS Baseline Requirements by @dzacharo in https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/pull/38 Full Changelog: https://github.com/cabforum/code-signing/compare/v3.7...v3.8

S/MIME Requirements
v1.0.15 - Ballot SMC017v2 - Jul 30, 2026

This ballot increases the minimum RSA key size for Root and Subordinate CA certificates in the S/MIME BRs from 2048 to 4096 bits for keys created after September 15, 2026, while retaining the 2048-bit minimum for Subscriber certificates. The ballot further requires that by September 15, 2027, CAs SHALL NOT issue Subscriber certificates from any Sub-CA whose RSA key modulus is less than 3072 bits, effectively sunsetting issuance from legacy 2048-bit Sub-CAs. The ballot also includes minor typographic corrections. This ballot is proposed by Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) and endorsed by Ben Wilson (Mozilla) and Stephen Davidson (DigiCert)

Network and Certificate System Security Requirements
Version 2.0.5 (Ballot NS-008) - Jul 9, 2025

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