Ballot SC095v3: Clean-up 2025

Ballot overview

• Ballot SC095v3: Clean-up 2025 introduces updates across the Baseline Requirements and EV Guidelines to improve clarity, consistency, definitions, and structural correctness.
• The ballot includes formatting, references, and consistency improvements; definition updates and clarifications; section-specific fixes; and normative adjustments.

Types of changes described

• Formatting, references, and consistency improvements
  • Standardization of formatting (including dates, tables, headers, lists, bolding, punctuation, hyphens)
  • Correction of links and anchors, typos, cleanup of spacing and duplicated text
  • Harmonization of RFC references and URL formats
  • Removal of obsolete or redundant editorial content
  • Removal of all relevant dates before 2025-01-01
• Definition updates and clarifications
  • Updates to definitions and terminology
  • Removal of outdated code-signing wording
  • Corrections to WHOIS and NTR definitions
  • Clarification of delegation and validation reuse rules
  • Addition of a Precertificate definition
  • Removal of legacy notes or outdated Relevant Dates
• Section-specific fixes
  • Corrections to numbering, indentation, spacing, and table structure
  • Missing sections and example restoration/removal
  • Adjustments to size limits
  • Updates to validation-method names and formatting
• Normative adjustments
  • Refinements to normative requirements (MUST NOT → SHOULD NOT)
  • Removal of outdated effective-date notes
  • Header updates
• Specific EVG and other clarifications
  • Correction to EVG 7.1.4.2.6 with a self-contained definition of Subject’s Physical Address of Place of Business
  • Clarification to EVG 3.2.2.14.1 that RDAP should be used the same way as WHOIS
  • Clarification of the Certificate Profile defined term
  • Update Section 4.9.1.1 to explicitly reference CAA violations as part of the Domain Validation process

Voting and adoption requirements

• Bylaw 2.3(6): adoption required two-thirds or more of votes cast by Voting Members in the Certificate Issuer category in favor; this requirement was MET.
• Bylaw 2.3(6): adoption required at least fifty percent plus one of votes cast by Voting Members in the Certificate Consumer category in favor; this requirement was MET.
• Bylaw 2.3(6): at least one Voting Member in each category must vote in favor; this requirement was MET.
• Bylaw 2.3(7): quorum requirement was MET (quorum was 15 for this ballot).

IPR review notice

• The review period was 30 days for one Final Maintenance Guidelines.
• Members with any Essential Claim(s) to exclude must forward a written Notice to Exclude Essential Claims to the Working Group Chair and submit a copy to the CA/Browser Forum public mailing list before the end of the Review Period.

Ballot timeline (as shown on the ballot page)

• Discussion: start 2026-02-12 12:00:00 UTC; end 2026-02-19 12:00:00 UTC
• Voting: start 2026-02-19 14:00:00 UTC; end 2026-02-26 14:00:00 UTC