Securing the electronic transfer of information between public authorities and communication partners (citizens, businesses, other authorities) can be achieved in a heterogeneous and open network environment such as the internet with the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. In the context of the German e-government initiative BundOnline2005, the authenticity, confidentiality and integrity of content requiring protection must be ensured by means of a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).

SSL study

Within the context of the public administration PKI, the SSL study aimed to find out if the existing e-mail certificates could be deployed as SSL certificates and the group certificates used to date could be used as SSL server certificates. A series of tests was used to determine their suitability or non-suitability for SSL-secured communication. The preceding document clarifies which opportunities exist for deploying certificates as SSL-only certificates and considers examples of reference use cases (electronic tax return form as well as the German ELSTER system and Central Aliens Register (AZR)).
SSL study (PDF)

SSL implementation plan

An SSL implementation plan sets out solution strategies for the practical utilisation of SSL certificates. This document describes generic methods for the distribution of certificates to a client or server and utilises a generalised SSL rollout specification to provide an overview of the necessary actions to take and requirements that need to be fulfilled in order to make use of SSL certificates. In addition, the two reference scenarios 'client-server communication with unilateral and bilateral authentication' are also considered, while accounting for the requirements and recommendations that arise from the security policies that apply for the public administration PKI.
SSL implementation plan (PDF)