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Parties need to trust a certificate for authentication purposes. Instead of trusting individual certificates of organisations, root certificates can be trusted. By trusting a root, all certificates that have the root within their PKI chains are automatically trusted. Most large root CA's are automatically trusted within web browsers, enabling computers to safely interact with most web servers.
Trusted roots and eIDAS
In the future, iSHARE aims to support iSHARE supports digital certificates that are recognized under eIDAS as Qualified Certificates. The eIDAS regulation aims to provide secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities throughout the entire European Union. A main part of this regulation is that each EU country is required to establish and maintain 'trusted lists', among which trusted root information is found. Each EU country is required to implement these trusted lists in their own countries. Therefore, iSHARE aims to make use of these trusted lists as trust roots within iSHARE to ensure secure and seamless interaction throughout the entire EU.
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