A digital signature is a mathematical technique used to validate the authenticity of a message, software or digital document. Digital signatures are easily transferable and cannot be imitated by someone else. It is a specific type of electronic signature that a signer can use to authenticate his identity using a certificate-based digital ID.

The signature certificate is corresponding to the signing private key. It will be used by individuals or organizations for signing purpose.

A Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) is a secure digital key that is issued by the certifying authorities for the purpose of validating and certifying the identity of the person holding this digital signature certificate.
Digital Signatures make use of the public key encryptions to create the digital signatures.
The DSC contains information about the user’s name, pin code, country, email address, date of issuance of certificate and name of the certifying authority.

The Information Technology Act, 2000, India, recognizes the Digital Signature Certificate as a legally valid signature. Digital Signature Certificates are generally a statutory requirement and can be issued, revoked or suspended by an authorized Certifying Authority (CA) under the Ministry of Information Technology.

The signature certificate is corresponding to the signing private key. It will be used by individuals or organizations for signing purpose.

Encryption Certificate is used to encrypt and decrypt the data. The encryption key pair is used by the subscriber for receiving encrypted messages which is encrypted using subscriber's public key.

The Document Signer Certificates are issued to organizational software applications for operating automatically and authenticate documents/information attributed to the organization by using Digital Signature applied on the document, documents/Information.

For e-Tendering, e-Procurement, and Trademark/Patent filing, a Class 3 Company / Organization User certificate is necessary. The highest level of Digital Signature Certificate is Class 3. It comes with a one-year or two-year validity period. The user must renew class 3 digital signature certificates when the validity term has expired.

The Certifying Authorities are authorized to issue a Digital Signature Certificate with a validity of one or two years.