Patent ID: 7945959

Claim:
A method for distributing a public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates comprising: receiving an electronically submitted user request for the PKI certificate from a remotely located computing device, wherein the user request is associated with a specific user; submitting the user request to a certificate authority server; receiving the PKI certificate from the certificate authority server for the specific user responsive to the submitted user request; determining one of a plurality of storefronts geographically located proximate to the specific user; securely conveying the PKI certificate to the determined storefront along with a message indicating an identity of the specific user of the PKI certificate; requiring a person physically present in the storefront who is attempting to pick-up the PKI certificate to produce personal identifying information, wherein said personal identifying information comprises an identifier of a mobile telephone associated with the person; and comparing the identifier of the mobile telephone with a recorded identifier of a telephone identified within records accessible by the storefront as being associated with the specific user, wherein delivery of the PKI certificate is dependent upon the received identifier matching the recorded identifier; selectively delivering the PKI certificate at the storefront to a memory space of the mobile telephone of the person present in the storefront depending upon whether the personal identifying information confirms the person is the specified user, wherein successful confirmation leading to the delivery of the PKI certificate to the memory space requires that the received identifier matches the recorded identifier.