Your digital ID includes a certificate that others require to validate your digital signature and to encrypt documents for you. If you know that others will need your certificate, you can send it in advance to avoid delays when exchanging secure documents. Businesses that use certificates to identify participants in signing and secure workflows often store certificates on a directory server that participants can search to expand their list of trusted identities.

If you use a third-party security method, you usually don’t need to share your certificate with others. Third-party providers may validate identities using other methods, or these validation methods may be integrated with Reader. See the documentation for the third-party provider.

When you receive a certificate from someone, their name is added to your list of trusted identities as a contact. Contacts are usually associated with one or more certificates and can be edited, removed, or reassociated with another certificate. If you trust a contact, you can set your trust settings to trust all digital signatures and certified documents created with their certificate.

You can also import certificates from a certificate store, such as the Windows certificate store. A certificate store may contain numerous certificates issued by different certification authorities.