The next requirement for an Organization Validated Code Signing certificate is called Locality Presence. This is where the Certificate Authority (CA) will attempt to verify that your organization or company has a presence in its registered location.
What is Locality Presence
To satisfy the Locality Presence requirement the CA will need to make sure that the legal entity (your organization) has a physical presence within its registered country or state. The CA doesn't need to verify the actual street address – they don't care that you're on Main Street – just the locality (city, state, province, etc.) of the address.
Usually the CA will verify this information by checking with an Online Government Database. They will look in the database of your local municipality, state or country and check that the registration details – namely the city/state in your address – match up against the details you provided at the outset of the process. If they do, you're good to go and you have satisfied this requirement.
But if everything doesn't match exactly, you will need to use an alternative method to prove your locality presence. Don't worry, there are three additional ways to satisfy this requirement.
Additional Methods
- Official Registration Documents – The CA's can accept any documentation from your local government that verifies the information you have provided for them. This can include documents like articles of incorporation, chartered licenses or DBA statements.
- Dun & Bradstreet – Dun & Bradstreet is an organization that provides financial reporting on companies. The CA's view the information provided in these reports as unimpugnable. Providing a comprehensive DUNS Credit Report will allow the CA to verify the physical address associated with your organization.
- Legal Opinion Letter – A legal opinion letter, sometimes called a Professional Opinion Letter or POL, is a document in which an attorney or an accountant vouches for the legitimacy of your business. Though they can be difficult, and sometimes even costly to obtain, they can also be used to satisfy three of the four requirements for an OV Code Signing Certificate. You can find out more about Professional Opinion Letters here.
Any of these methods will work to satisfy the Locality Presence requirement if the CA's attempts to use the Online Government Databases fails.
