Relying Party Charter

Important Notice:
This communication does not substitute or replace the Certificate Policy under which digital certificates issued by this Issuing Authority are issued. You must agree to the terms of the Certificate Policy before you rely on a certificate or otherwise access or use Trustis FPS certificate revocation information.

You will be deemed to have accepted the terms of this Charter by relying upon a Certificate or the information embedded in a Certificate, or by accessing or using certificate revocation information, even if you have not read this Charter. You demonstrate your knowledge and acceptance of this Charter by submitting a query to search for, or to verify the revocation status of, a Certificate or by otherwise relying on or using any information or services provided by Trustis FPS Digital Certification Services or certificate revocation information. If you do not accept the Charter, do not submit a query or rely on the certificate. In this case, you are advised to postpone any transaction which places reliance on a Trustis FPS Digital Certificate until you have satisfied yourself by other means of the trustworthiness of the certificate and of the measures to be taken to support your reliance on the certificate.

Introduction

Governing Certificate Policy

Trustis FPS publishes a Certificate Policy which governs the issuance, usage and management of Certificates. Trustis FPS complies with that Certificate Policy and in particular, represents that the information contained in a Certificate has been validated in accordance with the provisions of that policy. The Certificate Policy is available at http://www.trustis.com/pki/fpsia/ and important provisions are summarised in the PKI Disclosure Statement. If there are are any changes to the Certificate Policy, Trustis FPS will comply with its provisions regarding change control and on notification. To the extent permitted by the English Law, Trustis FPS makes no representations and holds out no warranties in respect of Certificates or certificate status information other than those expressly set out in the Certificate Policy.

Your Obligations

You acknowledge that your use of certificate status information and your reliance on or use of any Certificate or the information embedded in it will be governed by the Certificate Policy (as amended from time to time).

The Certificate Policy (in section 2.1.2.2 which is also summarised in section 4 of the PKI Disclosure Statement) defines specific obligations that you must meet before relying on a Certificate or any information embedded in the Certificate. If you rely on or use a Certificate (including the information embedded in the Certificate) without first meeting these obligations, your reliance on or use of that Certificate or the information will be inconsistent with this Charter and will be considered unreasonable and in derogation of your duty of care under the Common Law of England and Wales.

Policy provisions defining terms of use of and reliance on certificates, together with certificate status information are provided by the Issuing Authority. Relying Parties must therefore accept that sufficient access to information is provided to ensure that you can make an informed decision as to the extent to which you will choose to rely on or use a Certificate or the information embedded in it. You further accept that you are responsible for deciding whether to rely on a Certificate or information embedded in it.

Important Subscriber Obligations of which you should be aware

Subscribers of certificates issued by Trustis FPS are obliged to inform the Issuing Authority or its nominated representative, should any passwords, pass-phrases, PINs, private keys or other personal secrets used in obtaining authenticated access to PKI facilities, be compromised or be suspected of being compromised. On receipt of such a notice, Trustis FPS will revoke the compromised Certificate and publish notice of such revocation for the benefit of Relying Parties. However, you acknowledge the possibility of theft or other form of compromise of a Private Key corresponding to a Public Key contained in a Certificate which may not be detected by the subscriber, and of the possibility of use of a stolen or compromised key to authenticate a person or to forge a digital signature to a document.

Liability

General

Each point of this Charter is separate and the invalidity or unenforceability of any point for any reason will not affect the validity or enforceability of any other point. This Charter is published by Trustis FPS. Any claims, complaints, disputes or proceedings in connection with the provision of Certificates, the Repository or any other digital certification service by Trustis FPS, or with this Charter must be pursued according to the provisions of the Certificate Policy.

Contents
	Introduction
	Governing Certificate Policy
	Your Obligations
	Important Subscriber Obligations of which you should be aware
	Liability
	General