The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 January 2023):
Distinguished Encoding Rules DER(DER) An X.690 encoding format (or transfer syntax) for data structures described by ASN.1 that specifies exactly one way to encode a value thus ensuring a unique, canonical, serialised representation. DER is a restricted variant of BER. For example, DER has exactly one way to encode a Boolean value. DER is used in cryptography, e.g. for digital certificates such as X.509. (2016-05-05)