Common use of Public Key Clause in Contracts

Public Key. The key of a Key Pair publicly disclosed by the holder of the corresponding Private Key and used by the recipient to validate Digital Signatures created with the corresponding Private Key and to encrypt messages or files to be decrypted with the corresponding Private Key. Public Key Cryptography: A type of cryptography (a process of creating and deciphering communications to keep them secure) that uses a Key Pair to securely encrypt and decrypt messages. One key encrypts a message, and the other key decrypts the message. One key is kept secret (Private Key), and one is made available to others (Public Key). These keys are, in essence, large mathematically-related numbers that form a unique pair. Either key may be used to encrypt a message, but only the other corresponding key may be used to decrypt the message. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI): The architecture, organization, techniques, practices, and procedures that collectively support the implementation and operation of a Certificate-based Public Key Cryptography system.