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2025-06-05 1653 AEST

Jun 5, 2025

UN CEFACT Global Trust Registry Project - Kick Off Meeting​

Invited Jo Spencer John Phillips Steve Capell Alina Nica Gales Kamola Khusnutdinova

Attachments UN CEFACT Global Trust Registry Project - Kick Off Meeting

Meeting records Recording

Summary​

Kamola Khusnutdinova from UN CEFACT provided an overview of the organization's mandate in trade facilitation, including standards, policy recommendations, its work framework focusing on digital connectivity and sustainability, and its open development process for projects like the Global Trust Registry. John Phillips and Alina Nica Gales, the project co-leads, outlined the goals of the Global Trust Registry to recognize authoritative government registries and explore interoperable identifiers using a Digital Identity Anchor for enhanced supply chain transparency, emphasizing legal and institutional foundations of trust and a three-phase project timeline. Participants including Steve Capell and Carmen Miquel discussed collaboration tools and the importance of legal considerations.

Details​

  • UN CEFACT Project Kickoff John Phillips welcomed attendees to the first kickoff meeting for the UNCC Fact Project Global Trust Registry. Kamola Khusnutdinova from the UN CEFACT secretariat provided an overview of UN CEFACT, its mandate as an intergovernmental subsidiary body of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, and its role in setting norms and standards for trade facilitation, including data exchange and policy recommendations. She also detailed the organizational structure, including the bureau and the plenary.

  • UN CEFACT Deliverables and Work Framework Kamola Khusnutdinova explained that UN CEFACT primarily delivers information and data exchange standards and policy recommendations, along with capacity building subject to donor funding. She outlined the program of work adopted by member states every two years, with current focus areas on enhancing digital connectivity and fostering sustainability in value chains. Policy recommendation number 48 is slated for adoption at the upcoming plenary.

  • UN CEFACT Outputs and Partnerships Kamola Khusnutdinova highlighted that all UN CEFACT deliverables, including 48 policy recommendations to date, are public goods available on their website. She noted that standards are regularly maintained and developed in close coordination with various standard-setting agencies and international organizations. The Global Trust Registry project is one of many projects operating within UN CEFACT.

  • UN CEFACT Project Lifecycle Kamola Khusnutdinova described the UNCCAC open development process for projects, consisting of seven steps from inception to maintenance. The inception stage, involving expert proposals and bureau approval, is complete for the Global Trust Registry project. Subsequent stages include requirements gathering, project calls for input, public review when necessary, bureau approval of deliverables, publication, and maintenance.

  • UN CEFACT Governance and Membership Kamola Khusnutdinova outlined the governance structure, noting the plenary as the highest decision-making body and the executive committee as the parent body that approves high-level documents. She explained the process for experts to register and contribute to UN CEFACT's work, requiring approval from their country's head of delegation. Upcoming key events include the plenary in July and a forum in Senegal in November.

  • Project Goals and Open Principles John Phillips, a co-lead of the project, discussed the aims of the Global Trust Registry project, emphasizing that it will recognize authoritative government registries and explore interoperable identifiers. He clarified that the project is not intended to be a central registry or an issuer of secondary credentials, but rather to work with existing registries to prove their recognition and enable them to issue their own verifiable identifiers. He highlighted the importance of adhering to UN CEFACT's codes of conduct, particularly regarding intellectual property rights, which involves a royalty-free license.

  • Digital Identity Anchor and Supply Chain Transparency John Phillips introduced the concept of a Digital Identity Anchor (DIA), derived from the United Nations Transparency Protocol, as a cryptographically protected and signed data packet for verifiable credentials. He explained how this relates to supply chain transparency, allowing consumers to trace the provenance and authenticity of products back to authoritative sources like government registries. Steve Capell added that the project aims to counter issues like counterfeiting by providing a cryptographically verifiable way for members of registers to prove their membership.

  • Legal and Institutional Foundation of Trust Alina Nica Gales, the other co-lead, emphasized that digital trust relies not only on technology but also on the legal and institutional recognition of issuing authorities. She clarified that the Global Trust Registry's goal is not to create a worldwide database with access to national databases, but to establish a list of authoritative national registers that meet certain requirements. Carmen Miquel of IP Cinder supported this, highlighting the importance of understanding different countries' legal systems and the potential for IP Cinder to contribute their expertise in global land and business registries.

  • Project Phases and Timeline John Phillips proposed three phases for the project: understanding what exists, defining recognition methods, and guiding implementation. He presented a tentative timeline, aiming for most deliverables to be ready for review before the July 2026 plenary. He acknowledged the iterative nature of the work and the potential for complexities before reaching a simple solution.

  • Collaboration Tools and Next Steps John Phillips outlined the initial use of Google Docs for collaboration, with a potential move to GitHub later, consistent with UN CEFACT's requirement for no-cost collaboration tools. Alina Nica Gales encouraged participants to register as experts and expressed anticipation for the plenary in Geneva. John Phillips announced that the meeting would be recorded, minutes would be published, and the call would be repeated bi-weekly for different time zones. Steve Capell suggested creating a Google group and a Slack channel for the project, which John Phillips supported.

Suggested next steps​

  • John Phillips will create a Google group for the project and Steve Capel will set up a Slack channel in the UN.