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2025-09-05 0950 AEST

Sep 5, 2025

UN CEFACT GTR - AEST / PST​

Invited Jo Spencer Alina Nica Gales Steve Capell John Phillips

Attachments UN CEFACT GTR - AEST / PST

Meeting records Transcript Recording

Summary​

John Phillips opened the meeting by confirming the session was recorded and discussed IPR rules for UN/CEFACT initiatives. He, along with Sankashan, is consolidating legal interpretations by Alina Nika Gales and markdown specifications by Marcos Allende for the Digital Identity Anchor (DIA). John Phillips discussed the purpose and structure of pilots, outlining core elements, and emphasized self-sustaining pilots with support from himself and Alina Nika Gales. Marcos Allende proposed a pilot focusing on human identity in El Salvador, which received support from Darrell O'Donnell and Drummond Reed, with John Phillips noting its potential value and suggesting other pilot ideas like regional customs administration.

Details​

  • Meeting Logistics and IPR John Phillips opened the meeting by confirming that the session was being recorded and that minutes, a transcript, and chat messages would be generated (00:00:00). He noted that the project is a UN/CEFACT initiative, requiring adherence to codes of conduct and IPR rules, meaning work contributions become royalty-free and open-source.

  • Digital Identity Anchor (DIA) Legal Meaning John Phillips recap a discussion from two weeks prior regarding the legal meaning of a digital identity anchor, led by Alina Nika Gales. Alina, a lawyer, explored the legal implications of a registrar issuing a DIA and its subsequent reliance in trade transactions, framing it around the UNCITRAL MLER concept where electronic records equate to physical records (00:01:11). John Phillips also outlined three levels of information assurance that an authoritative registrar might provide, ranging from absolute responsibility for created data to unchecked, subject-provided data (00:02:13).

  • Consolidation of DIA Specifications John Phillips reported that Sankashan and he are working to consolidate Alina Nika Gales's legal interpretations of the DIA with Marcos Allende's work on the markdown specification for the DIA (00:05:13). The goal is to create a unified document for all participants to work from, and Sankashan is actively assisting with this background work.

  • Purpose and Structure of Pilots John Phillips explained that the project plan anticipates two or more pilots to confirm and prove the project's ideas, justifying recommendations to the plenary (00:06:01). The pilots aim for both exploration—expecting to find and improve upon unforeseen issues—and demonstration of the core idea's workability and value (00:07:22). Each pilot will include core elements such as an authoritative registrar, supply chain participants, and the UN/CEFACT authoritative register directory, and will demonstrate actions like DIA issuance, presentation, verification, and registration checks (00:08:21).

  • Pilot Engagement and Support John Phillips presented a sequence diagram outlining the three main blocks of actions for a pilot: registering an authoritative registrar, the registrar releasing a DIA, and the recipient engaging in supply chain activities with the DIA (00:09:45) (00:11:29). He highlighted that pilots will define their own use cases, drawing on UN/CEFACT's library of credentials and artifacts (00:13:33). John Phillips also emphasized the importance of identifying clear beneficiaries and benefits for each pilot, noting that pilots must be self-sustaining, though he and Alina will offer support, including advertising pilots through the UN/CEFACT GitLab space (00:14:33) (00:16:59).

  • Pilot Proposal: Human Identity in El Salvador Marcos Allende proposed a pilot focused on human identity, leveraging existing digital identity scheme implementations in Latin American countries, specifically El Salvador (00:22:39). Marcos Allende explained that the Civil Registry of El Salvador would act as the registrar, issuing IDs, and an ecosystem of verifiers would be incorporated into a global trusted list, which they believe could extend beyond supply chains to other value chains (00:23:45).

  • Pilot Proposal Discussion and Support John Phillips expressed deep interest in the human identity topic, noting that while the project is framed around supply chains, human identity is fundamentally important and he believes the project can add value without overlapping existing initiatives (00:25:08) (00:31:10). Darrell O'Donnell, representing Ayra, supported the interoperability aspect and overall registry availability for their members, aligning with the Trust Over IP protocol (00:25:59). Drummond Reed emphasized the First Person Project's need for personhood credential issuers within authoritative trust registries, indicating full support for making personal credential issuer registries interoperable within the overall network (00:26:52).

  • Additional Pilot Ideas and Next Steps Marcos Allende mentioned a potential regional custom administration project in Latin America, which would align more directly with the supply chain focus, and reiterated their belief that well-designed global trust registries could be reused across multiple use cases (00:34:07). John Phillips suggested that the inclusion of the human identity use case could provide valuable insights, potentially linking with other UN initiatives like ICAO's PKD system for passports, and believes it would not distract from the project's core objectives (00:36:28). John Phillips concluded by encouraging all interested parties, including those from India, British Columbia, Canada, and Spain, to formalize their pilot interests and expressed excitement about a forthcoming official announcement regarding the Spanish pilot (00:37:31) (00:40:35).

Suggested next steps​

  • John Phillips will put in Marcos as the name of the person who wrote the benefits ideas in the spreadsheet.

  • Marcos Allende will keep the group posted on the regional custom administration project in Latin America, and will ping Darrell O'Donnell to touch base on IRA as soon as he is back in the office.

  • Drummond Reed will put the link to the paper on personhood credentials.

  • John Phillips will share a link to the Kwame Anthony Appiah BBC Reith lectures.

  • Darrell O'Donnell will share some information that relates to the story of why trust registries are the linkage.

  • John Phillips will try to dig up the chat messages.