Ballot 160 – Amend Section 4 of Baseline Requirements

Ballot overview

• Ballot 160 amends Section 4 of the Baseline Requirements.
• The Policy Review Working Group reviewed Section 4 and proposed changes to several subsections.
• The motion was proposed by Ben Wilson of DigiCert and endorsed by Tim Hollebeek of Trustwave and Kirk Hall of TrendMicro.

Voting and result

• Voting on Ballot 160 closed on 4 February 2016.
• The ballot had 18 YES votes, 0 NO votes, and 0 abstentions from CAs.
• Browsers cast 3 YES votes, 0 NO votes, and 0 abstentions.
• The ballot passes.

Main requirements added or clarified

• Several subsections were updated to add No stipulation, including many parts of Sections 4.2 through 4.12.
• Section 4.9.2 was updated to state that the Subscriber, RA, or Issuing CA can initiate revocation, and that Subscribers, Relying Parties, Application Software Suppliers, and other third parties may submit Certificate Problem Reports.
• Section 4.5.1 was updated to refer to Section 9.6.3, provisions 2 and 4.
• Section 4.9.6 was updated to add a note that relying parties should check revocation status for certificates containing a CDP or OCSP pointer.
• Sections 4.9.14, 4.9.15, and 4.9.16 were marked Not applicable.

Timing and applicability

• The review period commenced at 2300 UTC on 21 January 2016 and closed at 2300 UTC on 28 January 2016.
• The voting period started immediately after the review period and closed at 2300 UTC on 4 February 2016.
• The ballot text does not state a separate compliance effective date for the normative changes in the supplied evidence.