Glossary

AATL

Adobe Approved Trust List (Adobe's worldwide list of trusted certification service providers).

APA

Federal Act of 20 December 1968 on Administrative Procedure (Administrative Procedure Act, APA; SR 172.021

Authenticity

In the sense of «found to be original».

Certificate

Data structure with the data of the key holder, signature properties, information about the issuing provider, and electronic signature of the provider.

Class A – qualified

(Certificate type) qualified signature certificate under the ESigA of the Swiss Government PKI (of the Swiss Federal Administration).

Class A – regulated official certificate

(Certificate type) regulated signature certificate under the ESigA of the Swiss Government PKI (of the Swiss Federal Administration).

Class B

(Certificate type) advanced signature certificate of the Swiss Government PKI (of the Swiss Federal Administration), issued on a smart card to all employees of the Federal Administration

Classified document

Non-public document marked «internal», «confidential», or «secret»

Content commitment

Or also «non-repudiation», meaning non-repudiation of a statement of intent in the case of an electronic signature.

CR

Certificate request, consisting of a data structure with the contents of the certificate. This is sent to a certification service provider, which then electronically signs the CR once the content of the request has been verified.

CSP

Certificate service provider

DesktopSigner

With the introduction of Signature Services 2.0, newly introduced locally installed program for signing both with signature keys/certificates managed by the server-based Signature Services and with local signature keys/certificates. The program replaced Open eGov LocalSigner.

DIN EN 419241-1

German Industry Standard (DIN) on Trustworthy Systems Supporting Server Signing - Part 1

DTIO

Ordinance of 25 November 2020 on the Coordination of the Digital Transformation and ICT Steering in the Federal Administration (DTIO)

E018

Internal federal instruction on the use and validation of electronic signatures in PDF documents.

ECAPO

Ordinance of 18 June 2010 on Electronic Communication in Administrative Proceedings (ECAPO, SR 172.021.2

eIDAS Regulation

eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market.

EPAO

Ordinance of 8 December 2017 on the Creation of Electronic Public Documents and Electronic Authentications (SR 211.435.1)

ESigA

Federal Act of 18 March 2016 on Certification Services in relation to Electronic Signatures and Other Applications of Digital Certificates (Federal Act on Electronic Signatures, ESigA; SR 943.03)

EUTL

European Union Trusted Lists (Adobe's lists of trusted EU certification service providers)

Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems, and Telecommunication FOITT and other third-party providers

Swiss certification service providers recognised under the ESigA.

GEVER, GEVER system

Electronic records and process management, electronic records and process management system

Hash, SHA-1, SHA-2

A hash is the result of a hash function, a unique string of characters of a certain length derived from a document, which is encrypted with the private key when an electronic signature is created. SHA-1 means a length of 128 characters, SHA-2 256 characters or longer.

HSM (hardware security module)

Hardware security module means an internal or external device for the secure storage of data and the efficient and secure execution of cryptographic operations.

Integrity

Refers to content or document that has not been altered

ISO 32000-x, ISO 19005-x, ISO 14289

Standards for various PDF/A formats

ISO 1905-1

Standards for long-term archiving of PDF files (PDF/A-1a and PDF/A-1b)

Media discontinuity

A media discontinuity occurs in information processing when, in the transmission chain of a process, data/information is (must be) transferred from one information medium to another or different information medium. The goal is processing without media discontinuity.

SCO

Federal Act of 30 March 1911 on the Amendment of the Swiss Civil Code (Part Five: Code of Obligations), SCO, SR 220

PDF/A-1a

ISO1905-1 standard on long-term archiving of PDF files

PDF/A-1b

ISO1905-1 standard on long-term archiving of PDF files

PDF/A-2a

ISO1905-2 standard on long-term archiving of PDF files. PDF/A-Levels 2a, 2b and 2u supplement PDF/A-1.

PIN

Personal identification number, a secret number, a sequence of digits known only to one or a few persons, with which they can authenticate themselves to a machine.

PKI

Public key infrastructure, infrastructure of a certification service provider based on the principle of a key pair of a private key and an associated public key.

Revocation

Revocation in asymmetric cryptographic systems means the revocation of a public key.

Root certificate

Top-level certificate of a provider that is used to sign intermediate certificates or end certificates.

Signature key

The private key is used to sign (encrypt) the hash value during the signature process. The public key (in the certificate) is used to decrypt the signed hash value when verifying the signature.

Smartcard

Chip card, often also referred to as a key card or integrated circuit card (ICC). It usually contains a microprocessor. It must be specially certified for use in electronic signatures.

SP-FOITT

IT services provider of the federal government: Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems, and Telecommunication

SSCD

Secure signature creation device, secure device for creating electronic signatures

Time stamp

A qualified time stamp is necessary for a qualified signature to be valid.

Trusted third party

In the case of electronic signatures, the certification service provider.

Validator of the Federal Administration

Publicly available system provided by the Swiss Federal Administration to verify electronically signed documents.

20200422-Characterdesign.V3.0_incircle.V2
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