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Simple public key infrastructure ( SPKI, pronounced spoo-key ) was born out of a joint effort to overcome the overcomplication and scalability problems of traditional X. 509 public key infrastructure.

It is specified in two Internet Engineering Task Force ( IETF ) Request For Comments ( RFC ) specifications — RFC 2692 and RFC 2693 — from the IETF SPKI working group.

These two RFCs are at the EXPERIMENTAL maturity level of the IETF's RFC status.

The SPKI specification defines an authorization certificate format, providing for the delineation of privileges, rights or other such attributes ( called authorizations ) and binding them to a public key.

In 1996, SPKI was merged with Simple Distributed Security Infrastructure ( SDSI, pronounced sudsy ) by Ron Rivest and Butler Lampson.