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2025-08-08 0956 AEST

Aug 8, 2025

UN CEFACT GTR - AEST / PST​

Invited Jo Spencer Steve Capell John Phillips Alina Nica Gales Anthony De Souza Nick Vanbeest Xu, Sherry (Data61, Eveleigh)

Attachments UN CEFACT GTR - AEST / PST

Meeting records Transcript Recording

Summary​

John Phillips welcomed attendees to the second UN/CEFACT Global Trust Registry project meeting, outlining the project's aim to develop a "digital identity anchor" and a "trust registry" which is envisioned as a directory of authoritative registrars for supply chains. John Phillips discussed the migration of the UNTP content to GitLab and highlighted that a key criterion for recognition is being an authoritative registrar, recognized by a nation-state. Participants including Paul Templeman, Marcos Allende, Mark Lizar, and Darrell O'Donnell discussed the scope of the digital identity anchor, the reusability of credentials, GLEIF’s role as an example for understanding existing systems, and the interoperability of trust frameworks. The project's goal is to create a lightweight, authoritative list of registrars to improve global digital credential resolution.

Details​

  • Meeting Overview and Administrative Details John Phillips welcomed attendees to the second meeting of the UN/CEFACT Global Trust Registry project, held on August 8th in Australia, following an earlier session for European participants (00:00:00). He emphasized the open-source nature of the project under UN/CEFACT rules, ensuring royalty-free contributions and public recommendations (00:00:54). The session was recorded, with transcripts and minutes to be published, and participants' names or presence are not recorded unless they opt into the chat (00:00:00).

  • Project Agenda and Concepts John Phillips outlined two main agenda items: project administration, including prior work from the UN Transparency Protocol Project (UNTP), and a discussion on how the Global Legal Entity Identifier (GLEIF) could integrate with the current project. He explained that the project would develop the "digital identity anchor" concept from UNTP into a specification and create a "trust registry" which is envisioned as a directory of authoritative registrars for supply chains (00:01:59).

  • Transition of UNTP Content John Phillips detailed the ongoing migration of UNTP project content, particularly the digital identity anchor specification, from a GitHub to a GitLab environment under the United Nations computing center. He acknowledged Marcus Allende's feedback on the content and stated that comments and improvements would be managed within the new project space (00:04:05). John Phillips also mentioned that for collaborative editing, shared documents would be used initially over git environment methods to ease participation (00:06:20).

  • Criteria for Registrars John Phillips highlighted that the project aims to create a list of authoritative registrars, with criteria largely drafted by Alina Nikagala, a lawyer and Spanish land assets registrar (00:06:20). He explained that a key criterion for recognition is being an authoritative registrar, recognized by a nation-state for supply chain-related entities like organizations, land, or trademarks (00:07:42).

  • Scope of Digital Identity Anchor and Trade Focus Paul Templeman inquired about the scope, asking if the project was limited to trade or included broader digital identity (00:15:30). John Phillips clarified that the initial focus is on "atomic entities of supply chain transactions" such as organizations and land, temporarily deferring the complex area of personal identity due to time constraints (00:17:02). He added that the digital identity anchor would act as a wrapper for existing identifiers like GS1, GLEIF LEIs, and Dun & Bradstreet Duns, without mandating a single identifier, aiming for verifiable data from authoritative sources (00:18:02).

  • Reusability of Credentials and Registry Value Paul Templeman further questioned if verifiable credentials issued for organizations would be solely for trade purposes or reusable across other sectors (00:19:15). Marcos Allende opined that a robust trust registry standard, even if focused on supply chains, could benefit many other use cases (00:20:33). John Phillips agreed, emphasizing that the project's goal is to create something useful that others can adopt, and a directory of authoritative registrars, such as those for companies in Estonia or land in Brazil, would be valuable on its own for verifying claims (00:19:15).

  • Understanding GLEIF's Role Mark Lizar sought clarification on GLEIF's scope and its role in the project (00:21:48). John Phillips explained that GLEIF serves as an example for understanding existing systems, contributing to the first step of the project's three-part ethos: comprehending what exists, representing it, and enabling operational functionality through pilots (00:22:39). Mark Lizar also shared their work on an "anchor specification" for transparency, surveillance, and privacy conformance, which similarly uses an anchor as a wrapper, and discussed how controller identification is critical for scaling digital consent online (00:24:01). John Phillips acknowledged the similarities in their work and the valuable insights from Mark Lizar's research (00:25:17).

  • GLEIF as an Example and Shared Interests John Phillips discussed GLEIF's structure and its use of a verifiable legal entity identifier, noting it's a different governance approach compared to GS1 (00:31:57). He outlined areas of shared interest with GLEIF, including the creation of a UN/FACT-hosted list of registration authorities from nation-states, which could serve as an independent source for cross-checking data for organizations like GLEIF (00:34:03). He also indicated a shared interest in managing the digital identity anchor data structure (00:35:10).

  • GLEIF's Authority and Terminology Darrell O'Donnell questioned the terminology used regarding GLEIF's authority, suggesting that "non-authoritative" might be inflammatory (00:37:09). John Phillips clarified that while GLEIF provides significant value and is authoritative in its own domain, it is not considered an "authoritative registrar" in the project's terms because it is not a nation-state-bound legal entity (00:35:10). He explained that the project's strict definition aligns with UN bodies focusing on nation-states and their legislative bodies (00:37:58).

  • Interoperability of Trust Frameworks John Phillips noted that entities like the Spanish registrar are considering concepts such as becoming Local Operating Units (LOUs) or Qualified Verification Issuers (QVIs) for GLEIF, which would integrate their functions. He suggested that the project's directory could recognize such integrations by adding columns to a table, detailing what a country's official registrar does or recognizes, including the use of GLEIF LEIs (00:38:52). Paul Templeman proposed distinguishing between "primary" (e.g., ASIC for Australian businesses) and "secondary" (e.g., Bloomberg) registrars, to aid in global resolution of digital credentials for organizations across various use cases (00:40:43).

  • Future Outlook and Project Engagement John Phillips concluded by stating that the project aims to move towards better resolution of global digital credentials by creating a truly authoritative list of registrars (00:42:19). He also explained that the project's approach for the directory of trusted registrars would be lightweight, akin to the ICAO-PKD system for passports, where countries are responsible for updating their data while the project acts as a curator (00:44:20). He encouraged attendees to review the publicly available slide deck on the digital identity anchor and engage with the project via email lists and Slack channels, emphasizing that future meetings would be held bi-weekly with ad hoc discussions also welcome (00:47:06).

Suggested next steps​

  • John Phillips will populate the 36-hour-old space with the necessary content.