Class of Certificate

Class 1 Digital Certificate

Class-1 Certificates are personal email Certificates that allow you to secure your email messages. These Certificates can be used to:
Digitally sign email - You can digitally sign your email messages using Individual Digital Certificate so that the recipient is assured that the email has come from you.
Encrypt email - You can encrypt emails using Individual Digital Certificate to prevent unauthorized people from reading it.
Authenticate to Web Servers - You can authenticate yourself to a Web Server to engage in secure communication with Web Server using Individual Digital Certificate. This protects all information such as credit card details that you send to the Web Server.
Class-1 Certificates however, do not facilitate strong authentication of the identity of the Subscriber; hence are not intended for, and shall not be relied upon, for commercial use where proof of identity is required.

Class 2 Digital Certificate

Class-2 Certificates are issued as Managed Digital Certificates to employees/ partners/ affiliates/ customers of business and government organizations that are ready to assume the responsibility of verifying the accuracy of the information submitted by their employees/ partners/ affiliates/ customers.
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.
This level is relevant to environments where risks and consequences of data compromise are moderate. This may include transactions having substantial monetary value or risk of fraud, or involving access to private information where the likelihood of malicious access is substantial.

Class 3 Digital Certificate

Class-3 Certificates are issued to individuals, companies and government organizations. They can be used both for personal and commercial purposes. They are typically used for electronic commerce applications such as electronic banking, electronic data interchange, and membership-based on-line services, e-Tendering Portal, e-Procurement where security is a major concern.
The level of trust created by the Digital Certificate is based on the authentication procedures used by the CA to verify your identity and the service guarantees offered by the CA to back up that authentication.
Certifying Authorities uses various procedures to obtain evidence of your identity before issuing you the Class-3 Certificate. During verification, you will also need to be physically (Personal) present before a Licensing Registration Authority (LRA), qualified by CA due to their neutrality and reliability. These validation procedures provide stronger assurances of an applicant's identity.
This level is relevant to environments where threats to data are high or the consequences of the failure of security services are high. This may include very high value transactions or high levels of fraud risk.