The authorization certificate works in conjunction with a public key certificate (PKC). While the PKC is issued by a certificate authority (CA) and is used as a proof of identity of its holder like a passport, the authorization certificate is issued by an attribute authority (AA) and is used to characterize or entitle its holder like a visa. Because identity information seldom changes and has a long validity time while attribute information frequently changes or has a short validity time, separate certificates with different security rigours, validity times and issuers are necessary.[1]