The United Republic of Tanzania enacted the Electronic Transaction Act in 2015, with the purpose of promoting the use of digital certificates for the growth of secure e-Commerce and e-Government. The Act defines the legal and administrative framework for the creation of Public Key Infrastructure (hereafter referred as PKI) in the country to generate trust in a digital environment. Thus, the Ministry responsible for ICT appointed the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (hereafter referred as TCRA) as a Regulator of Certification Services and Root Certification Authority.

To ensure proper management of the National PKI (NPKI), it was deemed necessary to formulate policies and respective guidelines. Thus, TCRA established the Certificate Policy and Certification Practice Statement (CP & CPS) for the management of Tanzania NPKI and its related services.

Tanzania PKI is a hierarchical PKI with the trust chain starting from the Tanzania Root Certification Authority operated by TCRA on behalf of the Government of Tanzania. Below Tanzania RCA, there are Certificate Authorities (CAs) licensed by TCRA  to issue digital signature certificates under the provisions of the Electronic Transactions (Certificate Services) Regulations, 2024.

The Tanzania National PKI comprises a CA hierarchy of three (3) levels:

Level 0: The Tanzania RCA (offline) is at the top-level of the hierarchy, which sets it as the trust anchor for the Tanzania National PKI. The Root CA certifies a layer of issuing CAs that intermediate to Root CA.

Level 1: CA that acts as intermediate CAs signed by the corresponding Tanzania RCA at level 1 of this PKI hierarchy.

Level 2: CA that acts as issuing CAs signed by the intermediate CAs at level 2 of this PKI hierarchy.