DSC GEM

A Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) is a secure digital key that certifies the identity of the holder, issued by a Certifying Authority (CA). It typically contains your identity  name, email, country, APNIC account name and your public key). Digital Certificates use Public Key Infrastructure meaning data that has been digitally signed or encrypted by a private key can only be decrypted by its corresponding public key. A digital certificate is an electronic “credit card” that establishes your credentials when doing business or other transactions on the Web.

Like physical documents are signed manually, electronic documents, for example e-forms are required to be signed digitally using a Digital Signature Certificate. Transactions that are done using Internet if signed using a Digital Signature certicate becomes legally valid.

A licensed Certifying Authority (CA) issues the digital signature. Certifying Authority (CA) means a person who has been granted a license to issue a digital signature certificate under Section 24 of the Indian IT-Act 2000.

The time taken by Certifying Authorities to issue a DSC may vary from three to seven days.

The Certifying Authorities are authorized to issue a Digital Signature Certificate with a validity of one or two years. The maximum period for which the DSC is issued is only two years. On the expiry of the term, the Digital Signature Certificate can be revalidated by paying the fees again.

Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) is not required by Companies but by individuals. For example the Director or the Authorized signatory signing on behalf of the Company requires a DSC.

For sending and receiving digitally signed and encrypted emails/ documents.
For carrying out secure web-based transactions.
In eTendering, eProcurement,for Registrar of Companies e-filing,Income Tax for e-filing income tax returns and also in many other applications.
For signing documents like MS Word, MS Excel and PDFs.

A Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) explicitly associates the identity of an individual/device with a two keys – public and private keys. The certificate contains information about a user’s identity (for example, their name, pincode, country, email address, the date the certificate was issued and the name of the CA. These keys will not work in the absence of the other. They are used by browsers and servers to encrypt and decrypt information regarding the identity of the certificate user.
The private key is stored on the user’s computer hard disk or on an external device such as a USB token. The user retains control of the private key; it can only be used with the issued password. The public key is disseminated with the encrypted information. The authentication process fails if either one of these keys in not available or do not match. This means that the encrypted data cannot be decrypted and therefore, is inaccessible to unauthorized parties.

Class 3 DGFT Digital Signature Certificate is required for DGFT website to communicate. DGFT Digital Signature is valid for 1 years or 2 years. User can save time and money by using DGFT Digital Signature Certificate.

In addition to four classes of certificates given below, the Certifying Authority may issue more classes of Public Key Certificates, but these must be explicitly defined including the purpose for which each class is used and the verification methods underlying the issuance of the certificate. The suggested four classes are the following :-
Class 0 Certificate: This certificate shall be issued only for demonstration/ test purposes.
Class 1 Certificate: Class 1 certificates shall be issued to individuals/private subscribers. These certificates will confirm that user’s name (or alias) and E-mail address form an unambiguous subject within the Certifying Authorities database.
Class 2 Certificate: These certificates will be issued for both business personnel and private individuals use. These certificates will confirm that the information in the application provided by the subscriber does not conflict with the information in well-recognized consumer databases.
Class 3 Certificate: This certificate will be issued to individuals as well as organizations. As these are high assurance certificates, primarily intended for e-commerce applications, they shall be issued to individuals only on their personal (physical) appearance before the Certifying Authorities.