Recently support received a question if video assurance can be used to replace a face-to-face meeting in an assurance. The short answer is that currently the rules of CAcert do NOT allow video assurances. [1, 2]

One aspect of the face-to-face meeting why you need to meet the assuree in person is such that you can check security features of the presented documents. This check can not be done with video communication like e.g. FaceTime, Google+ Hangout, Jitsi, Skype [3] as verifying documents includes getting a feel for the presented documents as well as checking security features, that are not or not easily transferable with video conferencing.

In case CAcert sees any signs of assurance entries that hint to having been conducted as video assurances these cases will be reviewed (by arbitration) AND removed from the system if they are found to be invalid.

[1] http://wiki.cacert.org/AssuranceHandbook2#Preparing_yourself_for_an_assurance
[2] http://wiki.cacert.org/AssuranceHandbook2#The_meeting
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videoconferencing