What are Different Classes of Digital Certificates

In accordance to the guidelines of IT-Act and the X.509 Certificate Policy for India PKI published by Controller of Certifying Authorities, e-Mudhra issues 3 classes of Certificates, namely: Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3. Each class of digital signature certificate is associated with specific security features and corresponds to a specific level of trust.

Class 1 Certificate

Assurance Level: Class 1 certificates shall be issued for both business personnel and private individuals use. These certificates will confirm that the information in the application provided by the subscriber does not conflict with the information in well-recognized consumer databases.

Applicability: This provides a basic level of assurance relevant to environments where there are risks and consequences of data compromise, but they are not considered to be of major significance.

Class 2 Certificate

Assurance Level: These certificates will be issued for both business personnel and private individuals use. These certificates will confirm that the information in the application provided by the subscriber does not conflict with the information in well-recognized consumer databases.

Applicability: This level is relevant to environments where risks and consequences of data compromise are moderate. This may include transactions having substantial monetary value or risk of fraud, or involving access to private information where the likelihood of malicious access is substantial.

Class 3 Certificate

Assurance Level: This certificate will be issued to individuals as well as organizations. As these are high assurance certificates, primarily intended for e-commerce applications, they shall be issued to individuals only on their personal (physical) appearance before the Certifying Authorities.

Applicability: This level is relevant to environments where threats to data are high or the consequences of the failure of security services are high. This may include very high value transactions or high levels of fraud risk.

Source:  https://www.e-mudhra.com/Class-of-certificates.html