Trust Anchors

Trust anchors are national or international authorities that typically run existing business or product registration, certification, accreditation, or other high-integrity processes. UNTP depends on trust anchors to add digital integrity to sustainability claims and identities by linking them to the authority, or other recognized entity, under which these credentials were issued. In essence, UNTP defines a protocol for existing trust anchors to continue doing what they have always done, but in a digitally verifiable way.

Trust anchors use electronic signatures and certified links to validate (or “notarize”) electronic credentials such as permits, licenses, or certifications. This gives the entity who receives the credential faith in its veracity. The following entities can act as digital trust anchors (the list is not exhaustive):

1. Government entities with strong business identity verification processes that can issue registration documents as digital VCs.
2. Conformity assessment bodies may issue certificates of conformity for those standards they develop and maintain. Issuing these certificates as UNTP verifiable credentials would not only allow suppliers to easily and reliably demonstrate their compliance with a standard to their clients and authorities but also eliminate the use of counterfeit certificates.
3. Export regulators may consider extending existing export certificate schemes (e.g., certificates of origin) as VCs and providing these to import authorities, thereby building added trust in exports.
4. Customs authorities may consider using DPPs as high-entity data sources to reduce piggybacking and facilitate green-lane import processing.

Planned implementations involving trust anchors include:

1. The Government of British Columbia (regulator), The Mining Association of Canada (Industry Association) and Northern Block (software provider).
2. CopperMark (industry association) and Northern Block (software provider).

Summary

Trust Anchors service types are

• registry operators
• accreditation authorities
• permits & licensing authorities

Planned Implementations

Entity Name	Type	Implementation Scope	Planned Date

Completed Implementations

Entity Name	Type	Implementation Scope	Release Date

Implementer Profiles

Entity X

Paragraph about the company, products, CRM support, rationale

Entity Y