Understanding Public-Key Infrastructure: Concepts, Standards, and Deployment Considerations

Government-Sponsored Initiatives

A number of government-sponsored initiatives exist (for example, the Government of Canada Public Key Infrastructure and the U.S. Federal PKI) that can be modeled in the same way as the internal, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer models described in the preceding sections. In this case, the internal business model is driven by a need to facilitate inter-departmental communications among civil servants. The business-to- business model is representative of the need for peer-to-peer communications between governments on a national, regional, or local basis. The business-to-consumer model reflects the need for a government to offer services to its citizens—although the specific applications may vary substantially ...