What is an Electronic Certificate?

An Electronic Certificate is a set of data enabling identification of the holder of the Certificate, secure exchange of information with other persons and institutions, and electronic signing of data sent in such a way as to enable verification of its integrity and origin.

Which Electronic Certificates does the Electronic Headquarters of the INE recognise?

The link provided below provides all the certificates that can currently be validated when launching a query against the @firma platform. Keep in mind that the certificates incorporated into the Platform have complied with the procedure described in the document "Processing of certificates in @firma", currently available in the PAE (http://administracionelectronica.gob.es) , and are classified into one of the currently established certificate types.
To obtain a complete list of the providers accepted by this platform, go to the @firma certification service providers document.

How to obtain an Electronic Certificate?

Applications for electronic certificates must be made to an officially recognised Certification Authority. The previous section contains direct links to Certifying Institutions, which offer wide-ranging information on the functioning of the different certificates, as well as how to go about obtaining them.

What guarantees does the Electronic Certificate offer?

The Electronic Certificate guarantees:

• The authenticity of the persons and entities that are involved in the information exchange.
• Confidentiality: only the issuer and the recipient see the information.
• The integrity of the information exchanged, ensuring that no manipulation is produced.
• Acceptability, which guarantees the holder of the certificate that no one else may generate a signature linked to her/his certificate, and prevents her/him from denying ownership in the messages s/he has signed.

What purpose does an Electronic Certificate serve?

With electronic certificates, recognised by the Electronic Headquarters of the INE, you can make enquiries and perform procedures.

En Electronic Certificate serves to:

• Authenticate the identity of the user, electronically, before third parties.
• Sign, electronically, in such a way that this guarantees the integrity of the data transmitted and its origin. A document that is signed cannot be manipulated, given that the signature is mathematically associated to both the document and the signatory.
• Encode data so that only the addressee of the document may access its content.

Fingerprints and signature standard

The accepted formats of electronic signatures are:

• PKCS#7; CMS (compatibility with all versions defined by the IETF1)
• XMLBasic Signature
• XMLAdvanced Signature (XAdES)
• CMS Advanced (CAdES)

Included in the proof of registration is a fingerprint of the files that have been presented. SHA-1 is used for the creation of this fingerprint.

Malware

In the case that files are presented with malicious software, the file will be considered as not presented, for the purposes of performing the procedure.