Press Release

Bodycote selects GlobalSign for secure e-document initiative

GlobalSign’s DocumentSign solution selected to certify and secure electronic test results

London, UK – 22 May, 2008 – GlobalSign Ltd (www.globalsign.co.uk), one of the longest established Certification Authorities (CA) and specialists in digital certificate security has been selected by Bodycote, one of the world’s largest suppliers of Testing and Thermal Processing services, to secure its critical test data and reports using GlobalSign’s DocumentSign™ services.  Based on the Adobe Certified Document Services platform, DocumentSign allows Bodycote testing experts to digitally certify electronic documents containing test results.  These certified documents cannot be amended and cryptographically bind the identity of the certifying party, and a timestamp, to the very document itself.

Bodycote Testing Group is a supplier of testing services with over 115 laboratories in 24 countries that processes thousands of test data and reports.  The diverse spectrum of industries in which Bodycote operates demands compliance with an increasing number of regulatory requirements, especially in the Health Sciences market such as CFR21 Part 11.  Coupled with the necessity to innovate away from expensive, lengthy and unscalable paper based processes and to offer more cost effective wide ranging services to its multi-tiered customer base, the obvious choice was to move to electronic business processes and test reports.

Bodycote Testing Group needed a solution with a simple and effective method for the end customer (i.e. the party reliant on the test results) to be able to transparently check the document’s authenticity and integrity.  Bodycote has a large international network of experts that need to independently approve test results, and ultimately tie the certified results to a specific laboratory further down the chain of reliance.  This meant a requirement for a highly distributable and scalable system to provide its experts, clients and clients’ customers with the means to easily certify test result documents.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) was chosen as the preferred file format because of the ease at which anyone can read a PDF document (there have been 800 million deployments of Adobe PDF reader).  However, standard PDFs do not ensure the document is guaranteed from unauthorized tampering, and neither do they bind the author’s identity to the document itself.  For assurances of authenticity, integrity and authorship, GlobalSign’s DocumentSign solution was needed.

DocumentSign meets Bodycote’s requirements by utilizing the Certified Document Services functionality already available in the millions of deployments of Adobe PDF reader –additional software downloads by the document recipient are not required.  Bodycote test results are converted to PDF and certified by adding a Certifying Signature via the DocumentSign USB security token.  When viewed by the document recipient, a prominent "blue ribbon" is displayed within Adobe Reader.  The blue ribbon gives information on the security status, such as whether the document has been amended after being certified, shows who certified the document and, based on a trusted time-source, when the document was certified (allowing documents to maintain their secure status and timestamp even when stored within an archive system).

The simplicity of no additional download or configuration for the document recipients ensures that documents certified are easily trusted by the many levels of stakeholders reliant upon the findings of the report.

“Bodycote has been working with GlobalSign for some time to help us meet our internal authentication requirements for secure access control through its digital certificates, so it was the natural choice for GlobalSign to help us provide external authentication capabilities to our electronic test reports.” said Alan Slater, Head of IS & IT Architecture, Bodycote. “The DocumentSign services our security requirements but is also instantly deployable and very scalable - essential factors for rolling out a solution that can be easily understood by every person in the reliance chain.  For our clients' customers, they simply open the test results in their PDF reader.”

Further information on Bodycote and its testing services can be found at
www.testinggroup.bodycote.com.

Further information on the DocumentSign services can be found at http://www.globalsign.co.uk/adobe-cds/index.htm.

About GlobalSign
Established in 1996 and as a WebTrust accredited public certificate authority, GlobalSign offers publicly trusted SSL, including SSL Certificates, EV SSL, managed SSL services, S/MIME and Code Signing Certificates for use on all platforms including mobile devices. Its Trusted Root solution uses the widely embedded GlobalSign Root CA certificates to provide immediate PKI trust for Microsoft CA and enterprise CAs, eliminating the costs of using untrusted Root Certificates. Its partnership with Adobe to provide Certified Document Services (CDS) enables secure digitally signed PDF documents, certified transcripts and e-invoices.  These core Digital Certificate solutions allow its thousands of authenticated customers to conduct secure online transactions, data transfer, distribution of tamper-proof code, and protection of online identities for secure email and access control.  The company has a history of innovation within the online security industry and has offices in the US, UK, Belgium, Japan, and China. 

GMO Internet Group
GMO Internet Group, headquartered in Japan, is a leading force in the Internet industry offering one of the most comprehensive ranges of Internet services worldwide. The group holds top domestic market share in domain registration, web hosting, and payment processing and provides a host of other Internet services including global online security services, e-commerce solutions, and Internet advertising to both businesses and individuals. At the centre of the group is GMO Internet, Inc. a company listed on the prestigious first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE: 9449). Please visit www.gmo.jp/en for further details.

For further details please contact: