Certificates for email encryption

The certificates issued by the German Bundestag and by the public key infrastructure for German public authorities (Public Authorities PKI) which have been used by the German Bundestag are available here for download.

• PCA Deutscher Bundestag 2006
  SHA1 fingerprint: 2d 50 2b f1 42 13 3b f3 83 53 3c 99 48 97 b5 f4 96 b1 08 9e

The German Bundestag’s Certification Authority

The German Bundestag provides Members of the Bundestag and staff from the Bundestag’s Administration with certificates to sign (digital signature) and encrypt emails. The certificates are digitally signed by the Bundestag’s Certification Authority (CA). Until the end of 2006, certificates signed by the root certificate of the Public Authorities PKI were also in use. The Public Authorities PKI held the role of the Primary Certification Authority (PCA). Since the beginning of 2006, the German Bundestag’s CA has issued certificates autonomously and thus also functions as the Primary Certification Authority. The roles and certificates of the CA and the PCA have therefore been combined.

Receiving and verifying digitally signed emails from the German Bundestag

To verify a signed email (verification of the digital signature) from the German Bundestag, you will need the certificates of the CA and the PCA, which are available here for download. Only once these certificates have been imported into your email client and you have added them to your trusted certificates will the signature be successfully verified by the email client. A successful verification confirms the origin and integrity of the email, i.e. that it was not modified in transit. In order to verify digital signatures signed by the Public Authorities PKI, you will need the certificate entitled “PCA PKI-1-Verwaltung <year>” and the certificate entitled “CA Deutscher Bundestag <year>” for the time period concerned. Digital signatures which have been signed by the German Bundestag’s PCA can be verified using the certificate entitled “PCA Deutscher Bundestag <year>”.

Sending encrypted emails to Members or staff of the German Bundestag

In order to encrypt emails, the sender must import the recipient’s public key into his or her email client. The public key for the individual email addresses of Members of the Bundestag and Administration staff is automatically included in every digitally signed email from the person concerned. You may wish to ask the intended recipient at the German Bundestag to send you a digitally signed email so that you can send an encrypted reply.