a method for facilitating electronic certification , and systems for use therewith , are presented in the context of public key encryption infrastructures . some aspects of the invention provide methods for facilitating electronic certification using authority - neutral service requests sent by an application , which are then formatted by a server comprising a middleware that can convert the authority - neutral request into certification authority specific objects . the server and middleware then return a response from a selected certification authority back to the service requesting application . thus , the server and / or middleware act as intermediaries that facilitate user transactions in an environment having multiple certification authorities without undue burden on the applications or the expense and reliability problems associated therewith .