Skip to main content

2025-06-19 1653 AEST

Jun 19, 2025

UN CEFACT Global Trust Registry Project - AUS / EU​

Invited Alina Nica Gales John Phillips Jo Spencer Steve Capell

Attachments UN CEFACT Global Trust Registry Project - AUS / EU

Meeting records Transcript Recording

Summary​

Co-leads John Phillips and Alina Nica Gales introduced the project aiming to create a global trust registry, a UN-hosted register of authoritative identifier schemes to enhance trust and transparency in trade and supply chains by enabling verification through open standard, royalty-free verifiable credentials and digital identity anchors. Alina Nica Gales highlighted the criteria for national registry inclusion and a planned pilot in Spain, while John Phillips described the project's phases, intellectual property policy, and different participation levels, encouraging engagement particularly from participants like Bharani V and Satyajit Suri, who expressed interest in contributing. The participants discussed jurisdictional differences in registries, data privacy (emphasizing the focus on business, not personal data), and alignment with other digital credentialing initiatives.

Details​

  • Meeting Start and Introductions John Phillips, a co-lead, started the meeting and introduced Alina Nica Gales, the other co-lead and a registrar from Spain and lawyer. John described himself as more of a technical IT person and mentioned the meeting would cover an explanation of the project, its context, and the work being done, followed by discussion and questions (00:00:00).

  • Project Framework and Intellectual Property John Phillips outlined that the project follows the UNCCAC open development program guidelines and has a code of conduct for participants (00:00:56). He emphasized the intellectual property policy, stating that all contributions are intended to be open standards and royalty-free, which is further detailed in the materials (00:01:56).

  • Global Trust Registry: What It Is and Isn't John Phillips addressed discussions around the term "global trust registry," clarifying that the project aims to enable registrars, not dictate their actions or business models (00:01:56). The primary goal is to make trade and supply chains more trustworthy and transparent (00:02:59).

  • Project Phases and Activities John Phillips described three key phases: understanding existing registries and capabilities, defining how to recognize registries (led by Alina), and creating an implementation guide to help registrars publish verifiable data, with potential pilots planned for later in the year (00:02:59).

  • Supply Chain Example and Verifiable Credentials John Phillips presented a simple supply chain scenario where a buyer needs to verify claims from a new supplier (00:05:06). He introduced the concept of verifiable credentials within the framework of the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNP), highlighting their cryptographic signing for tamper-proof data exchange (00:06:02).

  • Digital Product Passports and Conformity Credentials John Phillips explained digital product passports, mentioning the EU's mandate for them by 2030, and digital performance credentials as examples of verifiable credentials used in the supply chain (00:07:01). He noted the importance of cryptographic identifiers (DIDs) and business IDs within these credentials (00:08:03).

  • Digital Identity Anchor (DIA) John Phillips introduced the concept of a digital identity anchor, issued by an authority like a registrar, to map a business ID to cryptographic keys (00:09:52). He explained the registrar's role in verifying a business's legitimacy before issuing a DIA (00:10:50).

  • Conformity Credentials and Assessor Registration John Phillips detailed how conformity credentials are issued by independent assessors who are often also registered by an authority, indicating a layered system of trust (00:12:44). He mentioned an ongoing UNCFAC project focused on this area (00:13:42).

  • The Need for Authority Registers John Phillips highlighted the necessity of authority registers to verify the legitimacy of issuing authorities and prevent the creation of fraudulent ones (00:14:37). He noted that an authority's legitimacy is often rooted in law and country regulations (00:15:37).

  • Jurisdictional Differences in Registries John Phillips and Alina Nica Gales discussed the variations in how registries operate across different jurisdictions, including federal and state/provincial levels, using Australia and Spain as examples (00:15:37). They noted that some registries are centralized while others are not (00:16:37).

  • Alina's Perspective on the Global Trust Registry Alina Nica Gales emphasized that the lack of a common verifiable and interoperable digital trust framework is a major challenge in cross-border trade (00:18:55). She described the global trust registry as a UN-hosted register of registries that lists authoritative identifier schemes to enable verification of credentials (00:20:14).

  • Criteria for Inclusion in the Global Trust Registry Alina Nica Gales outlined the criteria for national registers to be included in the global trust registry, emphasizing legal establishment, recognition by national authorities, and legal effects of their registrations (00:20:14). She believes this ensures legal certainty and reliability (00:21:38).

  • Value Proposition of the Digital Identity Anchor Alina Nica Gales clarified that the digital identity anchor is domain neutral and globally extensible, not replacing existing identifiers like the EU unique identifier or VLEI but rather wrapping them in a standardized verifiable credential format, thus adding unique value (00:21:38).

  • Pilot Implementation in Spain and Invitation to India Alina Nica Gales announced a pilot implementation of the project in Spain and inquired about the potential for participation and implementation in India (00:24:17).

  • Participation Levels and Encouragement John Phillips outlined three levels of participation: observer, contributor (requiring UN CFAC expert registration), and pilot builder (00:25:35). He encouraged participants from India to actively engage and mentioned promising discussions had occurred (00:26:47).

  • Interest and Contributions from Participants Bharani V from India indicated their team would have internal discussions and provide a more refined response on participation in the next meeting (00:27:45). Satyajit Suri, with a background in digital identity and trust frameworks, expressed strong interest in contributing to the project's specifications and potential pilot implementations (00:28:38).

  • UN CFAC Expert Registration Process John Phillips explained the process for registering as a UN CFAC expert, recommending that interested individuals fill out the online form and notify him or Alina if there are delays (00:29:47). He clarified that this project phase focuses on registries of businesses, land, and similar entities, not individual personal data (00:30:44).

  • Research on Existing Registries John Phillips mentioned his research into the registry systems of 28 countries, compiling publicly available information to understand the current landscape (00:31:42). The goal is to create an electronic, searchable directory of trustworthy registrars worldwide (00:32:42).

  • Leveraging Existing Standards and Logical Model John Phillips noted the intention to learn from existing successful models like ICAO's passport system and the UN/LOCODE registry (00:33:44). He presented a high-level logical model illustrating the flow of trade, registration with authoritative bodies, and verification processes (00:34:38).

  • Project Work Bundles and Deliverables John Phillips summarized the three main work bundles: digital identity architecture, governance requirements for the UN CFAC registry (led by Alina), and implementation pilots (00:35:56). He pointed out the project's aggressive timeline to align with the UNCFAC plenary in July for potential recommendation sign-off (00:37:14).

  • Transition to UNCC Fact Collaborative Environment John Phillips informed participants about the upcoming migration of project materials from Google Suite to the UNCC Fact collaborative UNCC Fact Environment (CU), which is based on Atlassian tools (00:38:14).

  • Project Website and Registration Link John Phillips shared the link to the simple project website where participants can find contact information and a link to the UN CFAC expert registration process (00:39:24).

  • Addressing Data Privacy Concerns In response to a question, John Phillips clarified that the project focuses on business trade data, not personal data, though acknowledging the sensitivity around confidential business information (00:40:34). He emphasized the project's aim for transparency at scale to support sustainable development goals and track the origin of traded goods (00:41:33).

  • Alignment with Other Initiatives Satyajit Suri inquired about the project's alignment with other global initiatives in digital credentialing and verification, such as UN ECE work, the IRA network, and the upcoming global digital collaboration (00:43:48). John Phillips responded that the project's focus is on providing a royalty-free, open standard specification for registrars to issue verifiable information, distinct from other initiatives that may have different scopes or approaches (00:45:22).

  • Further Clarification on Data Privacy by Alina Alina Nica Gales further clarified that the global trust registry will not store or expose any personal sensitive data. It will only list trust registers and their metadata (jurisdiction, type of register, etc.) without granting access to private information across borders, addressing concerns about a large, accessible database of sensitive data (00:49:55).

  • Meeting Wrap-up and Next Steps John Phillips announced the meeting was nearing its end and thanked everyone for their participation . He encouraged participants to reach out with questions and noted that the next meeting would focus on reviewing the project's working documents in a more collaborative manner (00:49:08). Satyajit Suri and others expressed their appreciation and looked forward to continued involvement .

Suggested next steps​

No suggested next steps were found for this meeting.