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2025-10-02 1657 AEST

Oct 2, 2025

UN CEFACT GTR Project - AUS / EU​

Invited Alina Nica Gales John Phillips Jo Spencer Steve Capell

Attachments UN CEFACT GTR Project - AUS / EU

Meeting records Transcript Recording

Summary​

John Phillips opened the meeting by outlining logistics and governance, while Alina Nica Gales presented proposed governance requirements for the Global Trust Registry, its institutional framework, and eligibility criteria for national registers. John Phillips and Alina Nica Gales discussed streamlining document structures and feedback. Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay presented a registrar readiness checklist and provided updates on the DIA specification, which Alex Tweeddale further explored by asking about DIA storage and architecture.

Details​

  • Meeting Logistics and Conduct John Phillips initiated the meeting by stating that it would be recorded, transcribed, and publicly available, along with the minutes. He reminded attendees about the code of conduct and IPR rules, which are based on an open-source, royalty-free model (00:00:00). Participants can accept these terms through a simple online form or by emailing Alina and themself (00:01:01).

  • Governance Requirements Discussion Alina Nica Gales presented their work on the governance requirements for the Global Trust Registry, emphasizing the need for registers to fulfill eligibility requirements (00:06:35). John Phillips clarified that the project name, "Global Trust Registry," might be modified to avoid confusion, suggesting "UN/CEFACT Authoritative Registry Directory" or "Global Registrar Information Directory (GRID)" (00:09:15). Alina highlighted the importance of a UN body overseeing the admission of national registers and proposed principles like legality, transparency, and interoperability (00:07:44) (00:11:27).

  • Institutional Framework and Board Structure Alina detailed the proposed institutional framework for the Global Trust Registry, including the functions of the UN body as a custodian and the establishment of a board. They suggested the board should have between five and fifteen members, ensuring balanced regional representation and expertise (00:12:53). John Phillips noted that this structure echoes successful models like ICAO PKD and UN/CEFACT LOCODE, suggesting this be acknowledged in the document (00:14:23).

  • Eligibility Requirements and Dossier Alina discussed the eligibility requirements for national registers and the role of national focal points in interacting with the UN body regarding admissions, updates, suspensions, and retirements of schemes (00:15:18). They explained that a complete and accurate dossier, including legal mandate, scheme owner identity, and control of official domain, would be required for admission (00:17:08).

  • Document Structure and Feedback John Phillips suggested simplifying the deliverables by potentially merging documents that declare dossier information, such as eligibility requirements and data types, to avoid duplication (00:17:08). Alina agreed that merging documents could streamline the process, as the current governance document is 37 pages long. John Phillips encouraged attendees to provide comments and questions on the document, which is available in the deliverables folder (00:18:29) (00:21:36).

  • Recommendation and Appendix Strategy Alina proposed that while the full content of the lengthy governance document might not be included in the final recommendation, key elements such as admission procedures, national focal points, and fees should be considered. John Phillips suggested highlighting these crucial areas within the document to guide what should be included in the main recommendation versus an appendix (00:27:54). Harmen van der Kooij supported adding the detailed work as an appendix to avoid overwhelming readers while demonstrating thoroughness (00:24:44).

  • Registrar Readiness Checklist Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay presented a checklist designed to help potential registers assess their readiness for Global Trust Registry implementation from a legal perspective (00:30:55). He explained that the checklist, derived from Alina's earlier work on legal requirements, aims to simplify the implementation process and provide a quick overview of what is needed (00:32:08) (00:34:32). John Phillips found the idea useful, envisioning it as a tool for candidate registers to evaluate their preparedness (00:33:33).

  • DIA Specification Updates Sankarshan explained his work on Marcus Alande's updates to the Digital Identity Anchor (DIA) specification within the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) (00:37:40). He described the project's relationship with DIA as a downstream dependency, aiming to bundle proposed changes into a large pull request for the upstream DIA project (00:38:49). John Phillips agreed to discuss the best approach for submitting these changes with Steve Capel, the UNP project lead (00:40:05).

  • Digital Identity Anchor Storage and Architecture Alex Tweeddale raised a question about where DIAs are stored and recommendations for their persistence (00:42:28). John Phillips explained that the authoritative registrar issues and stores the DIA, much like how land and business registries retain records of credentials they issue (00:43:30) (00:45:53). He noted that the UNP architecture emphasizes a "transparency graph," allowing for diverse storage methods as long as the credentials are accessible and resolvable (00:47:04). Alex suggested a common resolution format for DIAs would be valuable (00:48:19).

Suggested next steps​

  • John Phillips will talk with Steve Capel to get his opinion about the best way to pass an upstream request to change the text of the DIA specification in the UNTP.

  • Alina Nica Gales will put a comment in the governance requirements document to indicate which parts should be in the recommendation.

  • Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay will put a preamble at the beginning of the document snippet to explain how he expects the document to be used.