Digital Rights Management
March 2021
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BSI’s Digital Rights
Management
How to access PDFs using the FileOpen Plugin
Digital Rights Management
March 2021
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Contents
1 What is changing? ............................................................................................................ 3
2 What is this document? .................................................................................................... 3
3 How to download the FileOpen Plugin ............................................................................. 4
4 Operating system requirements ....................................................................................... 5
5 Frequently asked questions ............................................................................................. 6
• When will this change happen? ......................................................................................... 6
• I already have the FileOpen plug-in installed, do I need to re-install it? ................................. 6
• Do I need to be connected to the internet to open the documents? ...................................... 6
• How do I access documents if my operating system isn’t compatible with FileOpen? .............. 6
• When I try to install the plug-in, I am told to contact my administrator. What shall I do? ....... 6
• When I open the PDF in my browser, I get an error message. Why is this? ........................... 6
• I’d like to share the document with my colleague. Can I? .................................................... 6
• How many times can I print the document? ........................................................................ 6
• Do I need to install FileOpen for documents that I have purchased in the past?..................... 6
• Can I make annotations to the PDFs and save them? .......................................................... 7
• What information does the plug-in collect, and where is it sent? ........................................... 7
Digital Rights Management
March 2021
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1 What is changing?
BSI is introducing digital security features on PDF downloads from the Shop and BSOL.
BSI is fully committed to improving the digital security of our standards, protecting our clients from
potentially fraudulent activity and Standards Development partners from copyright and intellectual
property breaches.
BSI is gradually introducing an extra layer of security to the shop and BSOL, to keep your documents
and experience more secure. You will be required to have FileOpen plug-in installed on your device to
download and print all BSI documents.
FileOpen document rights management solutions are trusted by publishers, corporations, universities
and governments worldwide to protect their digital assets from copying, piracy, and unauthorized
sharing.
You will need an internet connection to open the documents for the first time. Once your documents
have been authenticated, you will be able to access the documents offline.
2 What is this document?
This document is designed to support you in installing the FileOpen plug-in so you can continue
accessing standards once document rights management solution is live on the BSI Shop and BSOL
without any interruption.
This document will be provided in two versions – one encrypted, and one un-encrypted. Please read this
document and attempt to download the plug-in, then access the encrypted PDF.
This will give you an opportunity to try out the plug-in and feedback with any issues you encounter.
We have added Frequently Asked Questions section at the end of this document, which will help enable
you to install the FileOpen Plug-in, so do refer to this. If your query or question isn’t answered, please
email subscription.support@bsigroup.com or call us on +44 345 086 8037 (option 1)
More information about the FileOpen Plug-in can be found at https://plugin.fileopen.com/faq/.
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3 How to download the FileOpen Plugin
To download the plug-in, please click here. In some cases, you may need to contact your IT department
to install the plugin.
FileOpen is supported by the following PDF readers:
• Adobe Acrobat
• Adobe Reader
• Foxit Reader
• Nuance PDF Reader
• Nitro PDF Reader
• Tracker PDF-Xchange
• Bluebeam PDF Revu.
Please note: PDFs will not open in-browser. Some browsers will open PDFs in-browser as
default behaviour. This will cause an error, as the document is not being opened in Adobe.
If you're using Google Chrome and encounter problems opening your documents, please follow the
steps below:
1. From the chrome home page, go into settings (this appears as three dots on the top right of your
page)
2. Scroll down to the privacy and security section and click on 'Site settings'
3. Scroll down and click on 'PDF settings'
4. Ensure 'Download PDF file instead of automatically opening them in Chrome' is switched on
If you’re using Microsoft Edge and encounter problems, please follow the steps below:
From the Microsoft Edge home page go into settings (this appears as three dots at the top
right of your page)
1. Click on ‘Cookies and site permissions’
2. Scroll down and click on ‘PDF documents’
3. Ensure ‘Always open PDF files externally’ is switched on
4. If the document continues to open in-browser after following the above steps you may need to
update the settings of the PDF file.
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If the document continues to open in-browser after following the above steps you may need to update
the settings of the PDF file.
From Windows:
1. Locate the saved location of the PDF
2. Right click PDF and click properties
3. Check ‘opens with’, and if a browser is showing (e.g. Google Chrome), click ‘change’ and amend to
Adobe’
From MacOS:
1. Locate the saved location of the PDF
2. Right click and click ‘Open with’
3. Click ‘Adobe Acrobat Reader’ or similar
4 Operating system requirements
• Windows 7 or later
• Mac OS X 10.9 or above
• Linux Kernel 1.4 or later
• iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, iOS 4.0 or later
• Android 2.2 +
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5 Frequently asked questions
• When will this change happen?
BSI will gradually start introducing digital rights management from March2021.
• I already have the FileOpen plug-in installed, do I need to re-install it?
If you already have the latest FileOpen plug-in, you will not need to re-install it.
• Do I need to be connected to the internet to open the documents?
You will need an internet connection to authenticate the documents for the first time. After that, you
will be able to access the documents offline.
• How do I access documents if my operating system isn’t compatible with FileOpen?
For Google Chromebook users, please use the FileOpen Viewer available in the Google Play store.
For other users please contact our Subscription Support team on subscription.support@bsigroup.com
or call +44 345 086 8037 (option 1) for us to assist.
• When I try to install the plug-in, I am told to contact my administrator. What shall I do?
If you are trying to install the FileOpen plug-in on your company or organisation’s device, please get
in touch with your company's IT department for support in installing the plug-in.
• When I open the PDF in my browser, I get an error message. Why is this?
The FileOpen plug-in does not support opening encrypted PDFs in-browser. To view the PDF, it must
be opened in Adobe PDF viewer, FileOpen viewer, or similar PDF viewer applications. Please see
section 3 for further information.
• I’d like to share the document with my colleague. Can I?
An individual document (in this case, a PDF file) viewed after download from Shop or BSOL is
licensed to a sole named user who is permitted to install a single electronic copy of it, for use on a
single computer. We understand that users often view their standards from multiple computers
however and have built in flexibility for you to open documents on up to three devices to allow for
this.
• How do I purchase documents on behalf of a colleague?
The licensed watermark on any PDF's bought at the BSI Shop will be that of the registered user who
has placed the order. Should you wish the document to be licensed to an alternative user, they will
need to register and purchase themselves.
To prevent any document purchased in your name being locked to your computer, please forward
without opening the document. The user can then save the PDF to their own system, and open using
Adobe or an alternative PDF viewer.
• How many times can I print the document?
You are permitted to print a single copy of a document. Printing one or many pages, or the entire
document will count as a single print so we recommend that if you need a printed version, that you
print the entire document.
• Do I need to install FileOpen for documents that I have purchased in the past?
No, the FileOpen plug-in won't be necessary to open previously bought or download documents.
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• Can I make annotations to the PDFs and save them?
Yes, you can. However, we recommend adding a small annotation to your document, save it, close it
and reopen again to make sure this functionality is fully working. If you encounter any issues, our
customer service team will be able to assist you.
• What information does the plug-in collect, and where is it sent?
When a user attempts to open a document encrypted by a publisher using FileOpen's software, the
client reads information from the encrypted document and performs the following steps:
a) Obtains information about the document being opened and the publisher's authentication
requirements, from the document. Depending on those publisher requirements, the plug-in then
retrieves one or more of the following authentication tokens from the local machine context.
o A cookie from the user's login to the publisher's server.
o A username and password from a dialog presented to the user.
o A MachineID from the local context.
b) Makes a request over http/https to the publisher's server, passing the document identifier,
authentication token, and some data about the context in which the document is being opened.
c) Retrieves a response from the publisher's server either granting or denying the user permission
to open the document.
d) Manages the use of that document according to the instructions given by the publisher's server.
e) The FileOpen client reports data regarding the use of the PDF download and shares this
information with BSI. No third party, including FileOpen, receives any data. This data is used for
only two purposes;
o To ensure that the user of a standard is solely the appropriate customer; and
o To enhance the user experience through improvements to our systems.
A trace version of the FileOpen plug-in is available and allows you to identify exactly what information is
captured and sent between the plug-in and BSI. The trace plug-in can be found here:
https://www.fileopen.com/products/troubleshooting-faq
More information about BSI’s use of data can be found at https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/about-
bsi/legal/privacy-notice/. If there are concerns around how BSI use customer data, please do share
them with us.
