Meaning – A certificate, or more commonly known as a digital certificate, is an electronic password that allows individuals or organisations, to exchange or share data over the internet, using the secure public key infrastructure.
In e-commerce, a certificate is a digital document that binds a public key to the identity of the certificate owner, thereby enabling the certificate owner to be authenticated. The certificate is issued by a certificate authority.
The main purpose of a certificate is to ensure that the users and organisations are kept safe from scammers who use known exploits or vulnerabilities in the platform for fraudulent gains. The presence of such a certificate acts as a necessary roadblock to such elements and prevent irrecoverable losses too the individual, or an organisation.
Example of usage – “When her business was approved on the merchant platform, she was issued a unique certificate, which helped her tell the world that her business was verified and people could safely interact with the same.”