Digital certificates: the value of information for an easy issuance

At those times when technology allowing digital certificate issuance is not revealed or shown to clients the appropriate way, the process behind tends to be seen as complex and difficult to carry out. This frequently occurs among some certification service providers. However, as in all our services, Uanataca’s digital certificate issuance is characterized by its simplicity, either by using our GUI or integrating to our API.  

In this article we show important conceptual aspects relevant to our certificate issuance process, with approach to most common questions and including references to specific topics that may require a deeper review. Lastly, we’ll briefly describe how our API-based certificate issuance system is structured.  

Main actors in the process of certificate issuance

Internet provides a variety of tools that allow in a few steps the creation and issuance of digital certificates. Some are self-signed and don´t follow a strict validation of the included data. Unfortunately, these certificates lack of any legal guarantee as they are not being issued by a Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP). 

Uanataca is a QTSP, in accordance with the European Union Regulation nº 910/2014 (eIDAS). Employs its own Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a set of computer resources, services and policies with focus on the management of digital certificates and based on public key cryptography scheme.  

Analyzing our PKI, it is important to understand there’s an entity known as Certification Authority (CA), responsible for digitally signing any issued certificate under a highly secure environment.  

At this point is evident the enormous difference between a certificate generated through any free-access tool and a certificate generated by a QTSP. Any certificate provided by a QTSP -represented by its CA- implies total trust in the fact all contained data corresponds with the person the certificate is given, and related actions, i.e. applying a digital signature, are granted with the highest legal validity.  

We introduce a new entity that manages another key part of the issuance process. It’s the case of the Registration Authority (RA), a sort of interface between the end user and CA. In the RA all necessary information to be included in the user’s (a natural person, an organization, etc.) certificate is collected. Additionally, a meticulous verification of information veracity is performed before sending the formal request to CA.

The execution of previously mentioned functions inevitably requires of human intervention, for this reason an RA counts with the role of the Operator. The Operator, or Registration Operator, is a person whose responsibility aims on requesters that submit documentation for obtaining a digital certificate are in fact the person they say they are. The correct execution of online or face-to-face identification procedures is essential for the issuance process.  

In general, the operative related to each existing certificate implies management of what is called their life cycle. Besides issuance, the certificate life cycle also involves actions like temporary suspension, renewal, or revocation.  

📢 ¿Do you need qualified certificates for your clients or employees? Join Uanataca as a Registration Authority and ensure the highest legal guarantee in all transactions with the usage of qualified digital certificates issued by our Certification Authority!. Click here for more information. 

Uanataca RA API: Our service as a part of your systems

The main advantage of the API integration of Uanataca services to organization procedures or workflows is the real chance to incorporate our certificate issuance process in a preexisting platform, avoiding possible information incompatibility issues.

Integration in BMP, CRM, ERP application processes, implemented on document management systems, contract signature platforms, agencies, banking, etc., among other use cases, is totally flexible with no associated investment or enrollment costs.

In Uanataca we offer the best technical support to speed the integration process up to the fullest. In the same way, we provide a detailed documentation that shows all our API requests, workflow descriptions, sample code snippets, video tutorials and more! All elaborated with the highest care and didactic sense. ¡Visit our website developers.uanataca.com!

Discovering how our RA API works, the API-based management of a Uanataca’s digital certificate issuance process consists in three main stages: the creation of a new certificate request, the validation of all documentation provided by the requester and the subsequent generation (issuance) of the certificate. 

Creation 

In the creation of a certificate request via API, parameters like the certificate type and the storage method -software, cloud, or cryptographic token- must be initially specified. The type chosen has direct impact on some specific parameters the request must include. The identification and data collection take place on this stage, as results will also be added as parameters in the request API call.  

If you want to know more about certificate types we offer in Uanataca, click in the following link!

Validation

In the request validation stage -in hands of the RA Operator- total correspondence of the requester with his/her provided data is validated. On the API side, a simple call including the Operator’s credentials formalizes this action, as the responsibility for process completion and certificate generation is transferred to the requester user.

Generation

In the generation stage, an API call will make the trust service contract be shown to the requester.This person will have to read the contract, check all stated conditions, accept, and proceed to generate. Immediately, another API call establishes direct communication with the Certification Authority, which generates and signs the certificate. The qualified certificate is immediately sent to the requester user. 

In conclusion, having a proper knowledge of how our services work makes possible to understand the importance of using our digital certificates in your electronic transactions. In Uanataca we not only care for satisfying our clients as we provide them of the premium quality technology, the best customer service and technical support, but we also focus on ensuring they count with the most accurate information about most frequently used services as it is the issuance of our certificates, scope of this article.