Using Korean public and banking sites, you'll keep meeting an electronic certificate for identity verification. Once notorious under the name 'gongin certificate,' what is the current generation called?

The old gongin (public) certificate was a single government-issued digital ID required for almost every online form, bank login, and tax filing in Korea, but it needed clunky plug-ins and was famously painful to install and renew. Once the government ended its legal monopoly, the market split into joint certificates and financial certificates issued by banks, plus private simple-authentication apps run by Kakao, Naver, and the mobile carriers' PASS service. These options verify identity through your phone, fingerprint, or a PIN instead of finicky software, and still tie back to your Alien Registration Card for foreigners.

A royal certificate is invented and has no bureaucratic meaning in Korea, while a plain paper certificate cannot authenticate you on Gov24, HomeTax, or internet banking, all of which require live electronic verification.

Many Koreans cheered when the gongin certificate's mandatory status ended, since for years it was blamed for forcing users onto outdated browsers and security software just to shop or bank online.