Professional certificate
A professional certificate adds a verified professional title, such as notary or lawyer, to a qualified electronic signature or seal.
A professional certificate is a qualified certificate for a natural person that states a verified professional title or capacity alongside the holder's name. When someone reads a signed or sealed document, they see not only who acted, but also in what professional capacity that person was authorized to do so. Typical titles include:
- notary
- lawyer
- civil-law bailiff
- chartered accountant
- doctor
The legal basis is narrow: a qualified certificate for a signature must meet the fixed content of eIDAS Annex I, but the regulation also allows additional specific attributes, provided these do not affect the interoperability and recognition of the underlying qualified electronic signature (QES) or qualified electronic seal. A professional certificate applies this mechanism: the professional title is the extra attribute.
For issuance, the title itself must be verified, not merely stated. The registration authority verifies it against the relevant professional register - an authentic source such as the members' register of a bar association or a notarial professional organization - in addition to normal identity verification of the person. In the Netherlands, PKIoverheid determines, via the associated PKIoverheid Programme of Requirements (Programma van Eisen, PvE), which additional attributes may be recorded on a certificate and what conditions their verification must meet; certificate providers operating under this scheme must comply with that specification before a professional title may be included as an attribute.
Note: a professional certificate is not a separate trust service under eIDAS - it is an ordinary qualified certificate with an extra attribute. That attribute can become outdated while the identity remains unchanged: if the holder is suspended, retires, or leaves the profession, the certificate must be revoked (see certificate revocation), otherwise a signature may still appear to carry an authority that the signatory no longer has.
Two related variants add a different kind of extra attribute instead of a professional title: an association certificate shows membership of an industry or professional association, and a company certificate lets someone sign on behalf of their organisation.