Technical Group

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Terms of Reference

Background

The Technical Working Group (TWG) operates under the United Nations Transparency Protocol governance framework. The group ensures the development, validation, and maintenance of core technical components underpinning UNTP, including identity resolution, decentralised access control, verifiable credentials, and verifiable graphs. The TWG works in close alignment with other UNTP groups (Adoption, Supply Chain, Conformity) to ensure technical solutions are interoperable, verifiable, and ready for adoption at global scale to meet stakeholder needs.

Purpose

The TWG is responsible for defining, maintaining, and delivering the technical standards and reference implementations that enable transparency across supply chains. Its purpose is to:

• Maintain and advance the design of the Identity Resolver (IDR), Decentralised Access Control (DAC), Verifiable Credentials Profile (VCP), and other related protocols.
• Provide a forum for technical contributors to review, test, and approve specifications.
• Support development of reference sites, implementations, and libraries that demonstrate concepts at production quality.
• Support formalisation of verification rules for trust graphs.

Scope & Objectives

The TWG scope covers specification design, open-source reference development, and verification frameworks. Specific objectives include:

• Identity Resolver (IDR):
  • Maintain a resolver framework that supports multiple identity schemas and carriers.
  • Ensure the resolver can handle both decentralised identifiers and other widely used identity schemes in supply chains.
• Decentralised Access Control (DAC):
  • Explore and evaluate methods for decentralised, policy-based, and credential-based access control.
  • Assess relevant approaches and emerging standards without presupposing a single technical pathway.
  • Provide recommendations to guide the evolution of DAC within UNTP.
• Verifiable Credentials Profile (VCP):
  • Explore approaches for representing, exchanging, and presenting verifiable data.
  • Ensure alignment with relevant global standards bodies while keeping technology choices open.
  • Define requirements for rendering, presentation, and interoperability.
• Verification Rules:
  • Formalise rules for validating UNTP datasets in a discovered trust graph.
  • Explore creation of a shared library of verification rules.
• Reference Implementation:
  • Support the delivery of a functioning reference site and open-source tooling.
  • Achieve sufficient quality and stability to support the UNTP version 1.0 release.

Membership

Membership is open to technical experts, implementors, and representatives from standards bodies or organizations building solutions on top of UNTP. Potential implementors (solution providers, digital wallet developers, verifiable credential platforms, supply chain IT providers) are encouraged to participate actively.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Technical Working Group Lead (Chair):
  • Oversees group activities and progress.
  • Chairs fortnightly meetings.
  • Ensures issues are created, addressed, and closed.
  • Coordinates reference implementation delivery.
  • Guides the group toward achieving quality suitable for UNTP 1.0.
• Group Members:
  • Contribute specifications, code, and technical feedback.
  • Participate in reviews and testing.
  • Propose and maintain verification rules.
• Observers:
  • Attend meetings, access documentation, and provide feedback.
  • Must become registered experts to contribute formally.

Working Methods

• Meetings: Held fortnightly to review GitLab issues, approve merge requests, and track progress.
• Collaboration: All work is conducted openly via GitLab repositories and mailing lists, with decisions made by consensus where possible.
• Quality Targets: Drafts and contributions should progress toward production-grade reference implementations, capable of real-world adoption.

Deliverables

• Maintained specifications for IDR, DAC, and VCP.
• Open-source reference implementations (including a reference site).
• Test suites and validation frameworks.
• A library of formalised verification rules.
• Guidance and documentation to support implementors.

Governance & Reporting

The TWG reports into the UNTP Steering Group and collaborates closely with other working groups to ensure alignment. Decisions are made by consensus where possible, or by majority vote when consensus cannot be achieved.

Review

This ToR will be reviewed annually, or earlier if significant scope or responsibility changes occur.

Mailing List

A group mailing list is maintained and can be used by any list member to post messages to the group. The list also maintains an archive of all messages sent to the group.

• To join the mailing list - your request will be reviewed by a list administrator.

Meetings

Group meetings are held fortnightly. Please add the following links to your calendar.

• Thursday 9am UTC meetings. Every 2 weeks. Next meeting 4th September 2025.
  • ICS Calendar File. Download and double click to add the meetings to your calendar.
  • Join the meeting. Click to join the meeting without a calendar entry.

Each meeting will generally work through open issues and merge requests.

Previous meeting dates, recordings, transcripts, and minutes are summarised below with the most recent meeting at the top.

Previous Meetings

Meeting	Summary
2025-05-29	One sentance meeting summary here

2025-05-29 Meeting Summary

Paste AI generated meeting summary here.