All CA/Browser Forum Posts on CA/Browser Forum

Ballot SC099: Improve Recording of Validation Method

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

29 votes in total:

Ballot FORUM-037 – Adopt IPR Policy v. 1.4 and Associated Documents

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ballot FORUM-037 - Adopt IPR Policy v. 1.4 and Associated Documents

Voting Results

The voting period for Forum-037 Adopt IPR Policy v1.4 and Associated Documents has completed. The ballot has: PASSED

2026-03-26 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

CA/B Forum plenary Meeting - March 26, 2026

Minutes

Begin Recording - Roll Call

Recording started
Read note-well
- Read the note-well at SCWG prior

Review of Agenda

No changes

Approval of minutes

February 26th (Martijn) - (Draft minutes have not been distributed yet)
Please submit F2F minutes on Etherpad.

Server Certificate Working Group update (Dimitris)

Went over face-to-face agenda and ballot updates at 02/26 meeting
Face-to-face minutes are being compiled yet
Capturing BR version at DCV time. Working Group opined that requirement should be replaced with something else - Aaron Gable to propose the change (aligned with expectations of: Proper documentation, accountability, change management).
CP/CPS Content Consistency - gave examples where they were vague vs explicit. More explicit leads to more chances of falling into non-compliance and having to revoke. Captured the CA/B Forum expectations and how to proceed forward with improvements.
Revocation Timelines and CP/CPS consistency - alternative proposal to have CAs document which areas are allowed to have more flexibility and have a different revocation timeline (or no revocation at all as long as it is stricter than the BRs) - will be sent in F2F minutes.
Availability of resources such as CRL distribution points; repository; OCSP URLs; etc. Rules are vague now. CAs might implement settings to prevent abuse and DOS attacks (geolocation blocking, etc). Feedback to be captured in F2F meeting minutes and then see what next steps are based on that feedback.
Validation Subcommittee - Corey Bonnell
- ADN Ballot updates - Reached consensus, ballot should be about ready to go after some minor updates.
- Scott Rae presented on making more concrete guidance on Reliable Data Sources. Scott to create draft ballot proposal.
- DNSSEC - whether or not you have to check whether or not domain zone was secured with DNSSEC if one of the domain’s parents was not. If you know the parent was not, you do not have to check the child because you know it was not. May be ballot language drafted for this.

Code Signing Certificate Working Group update (Martijn)

Face-to-Face presentation by Karina for Microsoft’s vision for code-signing working group and ecosystem. Proposals to make it more available for individual developers and make it open source as well. Increase strength for authentication validation and remove human factor.

S/MIME Certificate Working Group update (Stephen)

SMC015 MDL Ballot will come out of IPR 03/27/2026. New SMIME BR to be posted after.
SMC016 Equivalence Ballot with SCWG now in voting through next week.
Ongoing discussion on two items
- Moving forward with a ballot to increase the minimum RSA key size for SMIME Sub-CAs - draft link is out.
- Potential changes to Root Program policies and how those impact SMIME BRs or SMIME CAs and what they may need to do going forward. Included in SMIME meeting minutes.

NetSec Working Group update (Clint)

Met Tuesday, 03/24.
NetSec Modernization Work - Determined Miguel will work on proposal for first steps of modernization effort.
Cloud Services Logging/Infrastructure use - CoreyB to update his proposal for next meeting in two weeks.

Definitions and Glossary Working Group (Tim H.)

No Update.

Forum Infrastructure Subcommittee update (Jos)

Ben Wilson provided update:
- Updating text of CA/B Forum website - request for volunteers.

IPR Subcommittee (Ben)

Received call from member of IPR Review Subcommittee - section 4.5 of IPR Policy and new participants and whether they had the rights to raise historic claims or not. Ben reviewing to ensure proper response. If no change, will close discussion on 03/31. if changes needed, will release version 2 for 7 day review period. Let Ben know of comments so he can batch it at the same time.

Any Other Business

F2F Meeting Schedule:
- 2026
  1. Vienna, Austria - September 22-24 - eMuhdra (Location to be confirmed) Registration is open on website now
- 2027
  1. Scottsdale, AZ - Spring 2027 - Sectigo
  2. Switzerland - Fall 2027 - SwissSign
- 2028
  1. Shanghai, China - Spring 2028 - TrustAsia (tentative)
  2. Thessaloniki, GR (or Identrust) - Fall 2028 - HARICA (tentative) or Identrust

Next call

April 9th

2026-03-26 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Server Cert Working Group – 032626

Begin Recording - Roll Call

Recording started

Ballot SMC016: Equivalence with Ballots SC096 and SC097

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[IPR Review] Ballot SMC016: Equivalence with Ballots SC096 and SC097

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 may be found at https://cabforum.org/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum-SMIMEBR-1.0.14-Redline.pdf.

Summary of Review

Ballot for Review: Ballot SMC016: Equivalence with Ballots SC096 and SC097

2026-03-13 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

March 13, 2026

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.

Ballot SC095v3: Clean-up 2025

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

24 votes in total:

2026-02-26 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Server Certificate Working Group Meeting Minutes

February 26, 2026

1. Begin Recording / Roll Call

2. Note-Well

The Note-Well was read.

2026-02-12 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

CA/B Forum plenary Meeting - February 12, 2026

Notes by: Janet Hines (VikingCloud)

2026-02-12 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Notes by: Janet Hines (VikingCloud)

Begin Recording - Roll Call

Read note-well

Note-well was read by Dimitris

2026-02-11 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

February 11, 2026

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.

2026-02-05 Minutes of the Code Signing Certificate Working Group

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Code Signing Working Group – Meeting Minutes

Minutes

Tom led the discussion as Martijn was unable to attend.

Tom read the Note Well.

OCSP discussion for Servercert alignment ballot

Karina is discussing internally at Microsoft on how best to proceed. She plans to send an update to the group in the next few days.

2026-01-29 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

CA/Browser Forum Plenary Call, 29 January 2026

Minutes by Jos Purvis (Fastly)

2026-01-29 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Minutes by Jos Purvis (Fastly)

I. Meeting Logistics

Dimitris read the note-well.
No changes were requested for the agenda.
The minutes from the 15 January meeting were approved without changes.

II. Membership Applications

The membership application of Santosh Pandit as an individual interested party was reviewed and approved without objection.

III. Ballots

The cleanup ballot currently in its discussion period was reviewed. Kateryna Aleksieieva (Certum) indicated there were no updates on the ballot status, but they hoped to have it completed in January.
There are 3 ballots currently in IPR: SC 94, 96, and 97. Ballots 94 and 96 will end their IPR periods on the same day; Dimitris asked the group for guidance on how to treat the release of red-lines and final guidelines for each ballot — whether to release separate versions of the BRs or a single version comparing the two. Corey Bonnell (Digicert) pointed out that this happened a few years ago in the Code-Signing working group and they elected to release each ballot separately, meaning the first ballot had an effective period of about fifteen minutes before the second ballot also took effect. Dimitris pointed out that the table for effective dates doesn’t include timestamps, just dates, so he was thinking of applying a similar approach but separated by a day. The group indicated that would be fine but there was no particular concern with doing separate releases but having both ballots’ effective dates be the same day.
Dimitris listed 5 ballots currently under consideration.
- Corey indicated he had made some changes around dates in SC87 (registration number improvement for EV certificates), updated the PR, and verified the new copy with the current endorsers. Once the endorsers have indicated consent to the changes, he’ll be proceeding with moving this into discussion and formal balloting in the next few weeks.
- Aaron Gable (ISRG) offered an update on the ballot for cleanups to ADNC names. The significant topic the Validation Subcommittee discussed was the difference between re-using a validation for the applied-for FQDN (which is what the BRs discuss today) versus re-using a validation for the actually-validated ADN (which is what the new version of the BRs included). Aaron and Jacob are preparing an email to update the community on the changes and updates the ballot proposes and hopes to have that out prior to the next Validation Subcommittee meeting.
- Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) is leading the ballot improving CPRs and clarifying revocation: there were no updates on that ballot’s progress.
- Clint Wilson (Apple) is leading the ballot now numbered SC93. Clint said there’s an excellent comment on the ballot pull request from GTS outlining their thoughts and concerns around the ballot. Clint asked the community for further discussion on whether the ballot offered sufficient value in comparison to cost to advance or should be approached via a different route.
- Finally, Dimitris reviewed the ballot for an updated timeline for errors affecting CP/CPS deviations. He indicated he had reached out to a few members to get feedback and discussion around the ballot but had not received much back, and would likely add this to discussion at the upcoming face-to-face meeting.

IV. Discussion Items — Current Business

Ballot Number Allocations
- Dimitris articulated the concerns around ballot numbering, which currently follows an informal process to allocate ballot numbers. At the moment, the process indicates a ballot number should be assigned once a ballot has achieved some consensus and attached two endorsers; he noted, however, that it’s much easier to have discussions around proposed ballots with a number attached to them for clarity of reference. He also indicated concerns with the currently pending ballot SC93, which has adopted that number from this process, but then leaves a gap in ballot numbers that might need to be accounted for in some way.
- Aaron concurred that it was easier to refer to a ballot if there were a number assigned; Jos pointed out that in the past this had resulted in numbering gaps that then generated questions later about what happened to those numbers that were skipped. Jos proposed a different solution in which we used SC- in order to create a convenient “handle” for the ballot that didn’t interfere with numbering. Ben Wilson (Mozilla) felt we should keep the current system as it is, and said if a ballot were abandoned once it reached the discussion stage it was relatively easy to note that in the historical record; he also pointed out that a ballot doesn’t need to be in its final form for someone to endorse it. Aaron suggested using the pull-request number for naming draft ballots. Tim Callan (Sectigo) pointed out that if we took the approach of encouraging “early endorsers” we might see people voting no on a ballot they endorsed initially because of the changes since they endorsed it; the group felt it was important in that case to emphasize there was no stigma attached to withdrawing endorsement of a ballot or voting no on a ballot previously endorsed. Dimitris summarized the discussion and encouraged further discussion around this on future calls.
The next topic was volunteers around minute-taking. Dimitris explained the rotation system currently in use for minute-takers, and asked that people reach out to him to be added to or removed from the list of minute-takers.

V. New Business

There were no new-business items from the group.

Dimitris adjourned the meeting, noting the next meeting would be 12 February.

2026-01-28 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

January 28, 2026

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.

Ballot SC097: Sunset all remaining use of SHA-1 signatures in Certificates and CRLs

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

26 votes in total:

2026-01-15 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Begin Recording - Roll Call

Read note-well

Note read by Dimitris in the SCWG call

2026-01-15 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Begin Recording - Roll Call

Recording started

Ballot SC094v2: DNSSEC exception in email DCV methods

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

26 votes in total:

2026-01-14 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

January 14, 2026

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.

Ballot SC096: Carve-out for DNSSEC verification logging requirements

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Voting Results

Certificate Issuers

27 votes in total:

Ballot SMC015v2: Allow mDL for authentication of individual identity

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

[Adopted] Ballot SMC015v2: Allow mDL for authentication of individual identity

The Intellectual Property Review (IPR) period for Ballot SMC015v2 (Allow mDL for authentication of individual identity) has completed. No IPR Exclusion Notices were filed, and the ballot is adopted as of March 27, 2026.

The new S/MIME BR v.1.0.13 have been published to the CABF public website in accordance with the Bylaws: https://cabforum.org/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum-SMIMEBR-1.0.13.pdf

[IPR Review] Ballot SMC015v2: Allow mDL for authentication of individual identity

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, and may be found at: https://cabforum.org/uploads/CA-Browser-Forum-SMIMEBR-1.0.13-Redline.pdf.

2026-01-08 Minutes of the Code Signing Certificate Working Group

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Code Signing Working Group – Meeting Minutes

Date: 8 January 2026

1. Antitrust Reminder (Note Well)

The Note Well was read

2025-12-18 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Final Minutes for CA/B Forum Plenary Meeting 2025-12-18

Minutes:

Opening:
- Dean Coclin (DigiCert) confirmed the recording was on and the Notewell was read.
- Attendance was taken.
- Minutes from December 4th were not yet released and would be addressed with Eva.
Working Group Updates:
- Server Certificate Working Group:
  - Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) provided an update: The WG reviewed open issues on GitHub, with many being incorporated into the cleanup ballot. Discussions led to progress and consensus on a path forward for several issues.
  - Wayne Thayer (Fastly) provided an update on the previous Validation Subcommittee meeting. They continued discussion on Jacob Hoffman Andrew’s pull request to update the definition of ADN, which involves substantial changes to section 3.2.2.4 and is moving in the right direction. In that call, Clint also proposed a ballot regarding the use of RDAP in the EV Guidelines, as the guidelines only specified WHOIS. The conclusion was that since the definition of WHOIS includes the RDAP protocol in the Baseline Requirements, only a clarification was needed, and this would be added to the cleanup ballot.
- Code Signing Certificate Working Group:
  - Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) reported a short call last week with limited participants, so there was no significant update. He hoped for more traction next year.
- S/MIME Certificate Working Group:
  - Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) reported on the previous month’s call where the main topic was client authentication for SMTP servers. It was unclear if there was an impact on the ecosystem or if it slightly overlapped with the Server Certificate WG. No real details were decided on the direction for this topic.
- NetSec Working Group: No update.
- Definitions and Glossary Working Group: No update.
- Forum Infrastructure Subcommittee: Ben Wilson (Mozilla) stated that there had not been a call recently, so there was no update.
Any Other Business:
- Dean Coclin (DigiCert) mentioned he received feedback on his proposal for a Member Emeritus category. He acknowledged the concerns and will come up with an alternative, providing an update after the new year.
- January 1st Meeting Cancellation: Dean Coclin (DigiCert) explained that he had attempted to cancel the 2026-01-01 meeting in the Webex account, but it had disappeared from the Webex portal, though it might still show on attendees’ calendars. He asked anyone with the invite on their calendar for 2026-01-01 to please delete it, as the meeting is not happening. Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) suggested adjusting recurring meeting dates, and Ben Wilson (Mozilla) speculated it might have been created before the CA/B Forum Webex account.
- Dean Coclin (DigiCert) also provided an update on the F2F Meeting in Houston, TX, from 2026-03-10 to 2026-03-12. Arrangements are progressing, and he encouraged attendees to register.
Next Call & Adjournment:
- The next call will be on 2026-01-15.
- Dean Coclin (DigiCert) wished everyone a Happy New Year, Merry Christmas, and happy holidays, then adjourned the meeting.

Attendees:

2025-12-18 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes:

Opening:
- Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) welcomed attendees and waited for more participants to join.
- Roll call was taken from Webex. Dustin Hollenback (Apple) was confirmed as the minute taker.
- Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) confirmed the meeting was being recorded and the Notewell was read.
- Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) noted the agenda was short and asked for any additions or changes. None were proposed.
Minutes Approval:
- Minutes from the previous teleconference (2025-12-04) had not been distributed. Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA) will send a reminder to Eva to complete them for the next meeting.
Membership Applications:

2025-12-17 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

December 17, 2025

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.

2025-12-11 Minutes of the Code Signing Certificate Working Group

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Code Signing Working Group – Meeting Minutes

Date: 11 December

1. Antitrust Reminder (Note Well)

The Note Well was read

2025-12-04 Minutes of the Forum

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Final Minutes of CA/B Forum meeting December 4, 2025

Approval of minutes:
- November 6th minutes: approved
- F2F minutes: approved
Server Certificate Working Group update (Dimitris): Summary of November 20th meetings. Basically: summary of the ballots, not much progress.
Validation: no meeting last week.
Code Signing Certificate Working Group update (Martijn): no updates. Next meeting next week.
S/MIME Certificate Working Group update (Stephen): invited guests. SMIME BR has made improvement over time in the security of the ecosystem. Additional study: relatively high occurrence of key-reuse. Topic for 2026. Number of ballots for the new year, relating to pseudonyms and mobile driver licenses. Upcoming discussions: SMTP to SMTP, close enough to SMIME to find out what the problem is. Next steps to be determined.
NetSec Working Group update (Clint): Not much discussion on the re-write, but next steps on cloud services. Very specific use cases, implementation guidance. No specific driver for that though.
Definitions and Glossary Working Group (Tim H.): Waiting for resource to become available.
Forum Infrastructure Subcommittee update (Jos): No update. Membership tools are down at the moment. This may delay sending out emails of recordings and minutes, just the automated ones.
Any Other Business: Proposal for new Membership category. Action to put in a ballot – will put a draft ballot forward in the next week.
Next call: Dec 18, 2025

Attendees:
Aaron Gable (Let’s Encrypt), Aaron Poulsen (Amazon), Adriano Santoni (Actalis S.p.A.), Alvin Wang (SHECA), Antti Backman (Telia Company), Ben Wilson (Mozilla), Chad Dandar (Cisco Systems), Chris Clements (Google), Clint Wilson (Apple), Corey Bonnell (DigiCert), Cynethia Brown (US Federal PKI Management Authority), Dean Coclin (DigiCert), Dimitris Zacharopoulos (HARICA), Dustin Hollenback (Apple), Enrico Entschew (D-TRUST), Eric Kramer (Sectigo), Eva Vansteenberge (GlobalSign), Hogeun Yoo (NAVER Cloud Trust Services), Inaba Atsushi (GlobalSign), Iñigo Barreira (Sectigo), Jaime Hablutzel (OISTE Foundation), Jeanette Snook (Visa), Jeff Ward (CPA Canada/WebTrust), Johnny Reading (GoDaddy), Jun Okura (Cybertrust Japan), Kateryna Aleksieieva (Asseco Data Systems SA (Certum)), Lilia Dubko (CPA Canada/WebTrust), Lucy Buecking (IdenTrust), Mahua Chaudhuri (Microsoft), Marco Schambach (IdenTrust), Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo), Masaru Sakamoto (Cybertrust Japan), Matthew McPherrin (Let’s Encrypt), Michael Slaughter (Amazon), Michelle Coon (OATI), Nargis Mannan (VikingCloud), Nate Smith (GoDaddy), Nome Huang (TrustAsia), Ono Fumiaki (SECOM Trust Systems), Pedro Fuentes (OISTE Foundation), Peter Miskovic (Disig), Rebecca Kelly (SSL.com), Rollin Yu (TrustAsia), Roman Fischer (SwissSign), Ryan Dickson (Google), Sandy Balzer (SwissSign), Scott Rea (eMudhra), Sean Huang (TWCA), Stephen Davidson (DigiCert), Steven Deitte (GoDaddy), Tobias Josefowitz (Opera Software AS), Wayne Thayer (Fastly), Wendy Brown (US Federal PKI Management Authority), Yamian Quintero (Microsoft)

2025-12-04 Minutes of the Server Certificate Working Group

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

1. Roll Call and Housekeeping

Roll Call from Webex. Technical issues with membership tool is being worked on. Manual capturing attendance. Comment by Martijn Katerbarg (Sectigo) that it will be auto-run.

2025-12-03 Minutes of the S/MIME Certificate Working Group

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Minutes of SMCWG

December 3, 2025

These are the Minutes of the meeting described in the subject of this message. Corrections and clarifications where needed are encouraged by reply.