What is a certificate and what does it look like?
A certificate is the digital equivalent of a passport. It is file which has been uniquely issued by a trusted authority. Each certificate is stored on a smartcard – similar to a credit card but with an embedded electronic silicon chip which can be read by a smartcard reader. The smartcard provides an assurance that the user’s private identity key is unique, since it cannot be extracted from the card. The card requires knowledge of a Personal Identity Number (PIN) to unlock.
