pdf - PDFA is not allow with password?

Question

I had used ghostscript for generate PDF/A with password, somehow it not working as expect.

I can have PDF with encrypted however no PDF/A compatibilities.

In other case i can create PDF/A file without password and what i got from PDF file is compatible with PDFA.

Not sure is this the case that PDF/A and password is not allow? Any one can explain this for me?

Here my sample:

gs     -dPDFA=3     -sColorConversionStrategy=RGB     -dBATCH     -dNOPAUSE     -dEmbedAllFonts=true     -dSubsetFonts=true     -sProcessColorModel=DeviceCMYK     -sDEVICE=pdfwrite     -sOwnerPassword=12345     -sUserPassword=1234     -sOutputFile=test-pass.pdf pdf.pdf

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65921878/pdfa-is-not-allow-with-password

Answer 1

According to the PDF/A-3 specification:

The keyword Encrypt shall not be present in the trailer dictionary.

NOTE 2 The explicit prohibition of the Encrypt keyword has the implicit effect of disallowing encryption and password-protected access permissions.

(ISO 19005-3, section 6.1.3 - File trailer)

(Similarly in ISO 19005-1 and ISO 19005-2, and surely also in ISO 19005-4.)

In other words, password protection is forbidden in PDF/A documents.

This is not really surprising; PDF/A is about making sure the content is and will remain accessible for a long time. Passwords counteract this purpose...