The first requirement for getting an Extended Validation SSL certificate might just be the easiest. You simply fill out the Enrollment Form and return it to the Certificate Authority. The form is a single page, it only requires some basic information about you, your organization and possibly a contact in HR that can verify that you are indeed employed with the company you’re applying for.
Organizational Contact
Throughout the Extended Validation process, you – the individual who is applying for the certificate – will be known as the Organizational Contact. This just means that you are the point of contact for your company.
Keep in mind that the reason Extended Validation even exists is to authenticate real companies, thus differentiating their websites from other websites and allowing them to provide their customers or clients with a greater degree of trust. The enrollment form is the first requirement that needs to be met in the validation process. The idea behind it is to verify that you, the Organizational Contact, have the right to act on your organization’s behalf in the first place.
This may sound severe, but it’s for your company’s own good. An employee in good standing has nothing to worry about. This is to weed out someone impersonating an employee, looking to commit an act of fraud by getting a certificate for an imposter website. Nobody – not your organization, nor the CA – wants this to happen, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure that you’re authorized to be applying for this SSL certificate before the process goes any further.
What Information Does the Enrollment Form Ask For?
The Enrollment form, sometimes known as the Acknowledgement of Agreement, focuses on getting information about the Organizational Contact. It asks for the organization’s name, the full name of the Organizational Contact, the Organizational Contact’s official title, the Organizational Contact’s signature and the date and place of signing.
Unfortunately, digital signatures or stamped signatures are not accepted, so you’ll have to print the form out, sign it and then either scan it or fax it back to the CA. You could, of course, mail it too. But we wouldn’t advise that—it will seriously delay getting your certificate issued.
