Reasons for revoking your qualified signature card
You can have your certificate revoked (before the validity period has expired). This is urgently necessary if you lose your signature card because revocation is the only way to prevent misuse of the card.
Please note that anybody who can use your signature card – i.e. anybody who has the card and the PIN – can perform acts which are legally binding upon you because he or she has your "digital signature"! Any electronic signature generated using your electronic signature key is generally deemed to be yours if your certificate was valid at the time it was generated and if there are no facts which disprove the presumption that you deliberately generated the electronic signature.
Revocation rights
Pursuant to the German Signature Law, a certification service provider must immediately revoke a qualified certificate if
- this is demanded either by a signature key holder or their representative (third party authorised to revoke)
- the certificate was issued on the basis of incorrect data
- the certification service provider discontinues his activities and if such activities are not continued by another certification service provider
- the certificate holder fails to fulfil their contractual obligations.
Other reasons for revocation can be considered in appropriate agreements.
Revoking the qualified signature card
You have two options when it comes to having your certificate revoked:
Either call the
hotline of our revocation service:
030 / 25 93 91 - 600. This revocation hotline is available around the clock, as demanded by the German Signature Law.
Or send your
written revocation request to our revocation service at the following address:
D-TRUST GmbH
Sperrdienst
Kommandantenstraße 15
10969 Berlin.
If you call the hotline in order to have your certificate revoked, you will have to identify yourself as the authorised owner by stating the
revocation password which you chose in your application. Please note the correct spelling (upper and lower case) of your revocation password. If you give the correct password, the certificate will be revoked immediately.
If you have your certificate revoked in writing, your right to revoke is checked on the basis of your personal details and your hand-written signature. The signature on your application form then serves as a specimen signature. The certificate is then revoked on the day the certification authority of D-TRUST GmbH receives your letter. You can also choose a date in the future for revocation to come into effect. Retroactive revocation, in contrast, is not possible, nor does the German Signature Law permit temporary revocation because a revocation, once made, cannot be reversed.
As soon as you do not need your signature card any longer, you should have it revoked or destroyed using a punch in order to destroy the chip, for example. Please do not forget that any data encrypted using this card can only be decrypted using this same card and the pertinent keys and pins. This means that you will either have to keep the card and PIN or decrypt the data before destroying the card. If you keep the card, you can enter an incorrect "SPECIFIC" PIN three times in succession in order to render the signature key ineffective.
Questions
If you have any other questions concerning revocation, please send an e-mail to
service@d-trust.net or call us at
030 / 259391 0.
