Authenticated Public Laws

Most users probably aren’t concerned about this, but having an authenticated version of a document is very important to the legal community. At NLC we have had to stamp and sign photocopies that we have made for attorneys to certify that they are authentic copies of the original document. The legal community has been concerned about the possibility that statutes and other documents needed in court would no longer be distributed in print through the Government Printing Office Depository Program. GPO has been working for several years on an authentication process to certify that .pdf versions are true copies, and made the following announcement today. GPO is pleased to announce the release of Authenticated Public and Private Laws for the 110th Congress on GPO Access. In May 2007, GPO released a beta version of this database. The unsigned PDF files in the existing database for Public and Private Laws for the 110th Congress will be replaced with the authenticated PDF files previously in the beta application. Search or browse Public and Private Laws at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/index.html GPO’s Authentication initiative focuses on establishing GPO as the trusted information disseminator and providing the assurance that an electronic document has not been altered since GPO disseminated it. The Public and Private Laws application provides authenticated Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files for the 110th Congress only. Authenticated public and private laws within this application contain digitally signed and certified PDF files that contain GPO’s Seal of Authenticity. These files have been digitally signed and certified using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology. GPO is using PKI and Digital Signature technologies to verify the authenticity of the electronic U.S. Government documents that it disseminates through the FDLP. GPO’s Seal of Authenticity notifies users that a document has not been altered since it was authenticated and disseminated by GPO.