This TF schedules meetings as needed. Each meeting will be announced on the GSWG mailing list and the #governance-architecture-tf Slack channel.

The meetings (and Zoom links) are available on the ToIP meeting calendar:
LFX Meetings

Zoom Meeting Links / Recordings

Video and Transcript: Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

Meeting starts 03:14 in when the anti-trust statement is read.

Attendees

@John Phillips

@Neil Thomson

@Scott Perry

@Jo Spencer

Mikka Elfatih

@sankarshan (arrived 20 minutes in)

Agenda Items and Notes (including all relevant links)

Summary of meeting:

Summary of meeting generated by NotebookLM (notebooklm.google.com) from the transcript and chat messages.

Prompt used was:

“Generate the minutes of the Governance Architecture Task Force Meeting using the transcript and chat sources provided. Summarise the key points made and decisions and actions agreed and attribute them to the appropriate participant or participants. Finish the meeting minutes with a list of the actions (if any) agreed in the meeting.”

Date: April 30, 2025 (Inferred from transcript date and reference to meeting 2 weeks prior [1, 2])

Participants: John Phillips (Sezoo), Neil Thomson (QueryVision), Scott Perry (Digital Governance Institute), Makki Elfatih (Hkdolts), Jo Spencer (Sezoo), sankarshan mukhopadhyay (Dhiway Networks Private Limited) (joined late [3])

Meeting Overview:

The meeting addressed the challenge of the lost recording from the previous session [4, 5], reviewed key topics from that meeting [6, 7], received an update on the UN Global Trust Registry (GTR) project [8], discussed potential collaboration between Trust Over IP and the UN GTR project [9-11], and decided on how to manage the task force's meeting cadence given John Phillips' expected time commitments to the GTR project [12, 13]. The discussion also delved into the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) [14, 15], its approach compared to platform-based solutions [16, 17], the concepts of a core protocol and extensions [18], and the idea of data staying with the originator using linked data [19, 20].

Key Points Discussed:

• Missing Recording from Previous Meeting: John Phillips reported that the recording from the meeting two weeks prior was lost [4, 5, 21]. Only the first 6 minutes of preamble and chat were captured [5, 22, 23]. This issue was attributed to a problem with using the stop and start recording function [24, 25]. Michelle from the Links Foundation confirmed the recording could not be found [24]. As minutes rely on transcripts and chat, this made creating comprehensive minutes difficult [5, 26].

• Recap of Previous Meeting: Neil Thomson offered to share his personal notes from the previous meeting by adding them to the Wiki page [27-29]. The previous meeting's discussion included looking at the conceptual model and the workflow for discovering, resolving, and verifying information [6]. This related to the UNTP principle of finding verifiable data about a thing using an identity resolver specification [7], based on reviewing the UNTP specification pages [7].

• UN Global Trust Registry (GTR) Project Update: John Phillips provided an update on the UN GTR project [8].

  • It is a formal project given the go-ahead by three or more countries [8].

  • It is currently in a "call for participation" phase [8].

  • They are partnering with the registadores of Spain (https://ww1.registadores.org/?usid=27&utid=12335149050) from a business perspective [8].T

  • Registadores run Spain's registry for various things like businesses, land, trucks, and planes, relevant to supply chains [30].

  • A kickoff meeting, cadence, and infrastructure still need to be set up [30].

  • John expects this pro bono project may take up to 30% of his time per week, which will significantly reduce his available time for other areas [31]. He flagged that he would be very time-poor for other focuses [31, 32].

• Synergy between Trust Over IP and UN GTR:

  • Many GATF deliverables for the current period are consistent with the UN GTR work [33].

  • Scott Perry asked if GATF work could contribute to the GTR project to better utilise John's time [9].

  • John's hope is to find a way to cross-pollinate and potentially combine the groups [9, 34].

  • The UNTP project (driving GTR) requires significant time to manage participants and questions [35].

  • John aims to cross-share between Trust Over IP task forces and the UN project, flagging interesting developments, getting input from Trust Over IP into the UN project, and making sense of it all [10, 36, 37].

  • It was noted that Trust Over IP and the UN are independent organisations and not required to align [10]

  • Scott Perry highlighted that participating in projects like GTR helps test Trust Over IP's methodology and perspectives, which can improve the task force's architecture work [38].

• Invitation to Participate in UN GTR: John extended an invitation for the group to become active participants in the UNCEFACT Global Trust Registry Project [39, 40].

  • Active participation involves a registration process through UNCEFACT as an expert [39].

  • Participants can legitimately claim they are a UN expert in this area [39, 41, 42].

  • The process requires being sponsored by your country via the Head of Delegation [41, 43, 44]. John provided links to the Heads of Delegation list and the expert registration form [2].

  • When filling out the form, participants should select areas of interest where they have credible expertise [45, 46]. While there isn't a "trust registry" checkbox [45], participants can express their interest in writing regarding the UN Global Trust Registry project specifically [25, 47].

• Managing Meeting Cadence: Given John's anticipated time constraints [31, 32], the group discussed how to manage the bi-weekly meetings [12, 48]. Options included going asynchronous or moving to ad-hoc meetings [48-50].

  • Neil Thomson offered to step up and run meetings if John is absent [13, 28, 48, 50].

  • The decision was made to keep the bi-weekly schedule and calendar entries [13, 48]. Neil will run the meetings if John is not present, ensuring a process of reviewing previous work and planning next steps [13, 48]. They will decide on a meeting-by-meeting basis if there is substantive content [48].

• Deep Dive into UNTP: The group revisited the UNTP specification, specifically the "resolver" section [14, 51].

  • The resolver section uses a flowchart to explain how UNTP understands and resolves the identity of things for potentially non-technical audiences [51].

  • UNTP is influenced by contributions from GS1 and interest from Europe regarding deforestation regulations and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) initiative [52].

  • Key UNTP terms include DPP (Digital Product Passport) and Dia (Digital Identity Anchor) [53].

  • UNTP focuses on being a protocol, not a platform, contrasting with prior failed supply chain efforts that required participants to join a specific platform [17, 54]. Requiring all participants to join the same platform (or blockchain) is seen as implausible due to existing systems and standards like customs systems and GTINs [37, 55].

  • UNTP defines a core architecture of fundamental requirements for supply chain transparency [18].

  • Extensions can be built on the core by specific sectors (like textiles, leather, automotive) to add their own vocabulary and specifics while complying with the core [18, 56, 57].

  • The core is updated based on common consensus fed back from extensions [42, 58]. This model was compared to the Linux Kernel [58].

  • The goal is to enable a "transparency graph search" allowing participants to find claims made by upstream parties regarding issues like greenhouse gas emissions or modern slavery [59, 60].

  • UNTP aims to be lightweight and balances usefulness with avoiding conflict [61].

  • Jo Spencer clarified that UNTP is specifically about transparency of a product's process history and regulatory compliance, not a comprehensive trade platform [62-64].

  • John explained a fundamental UNTP idea: data stays with the originator [19]. Parties publish data (like a DPP) to their own store and share a link/identifier [20]. A trust graph is built using linked data, and exchange happens via link exploration rather than sending/receiving data [20, 65]. This was compared to the internet and hyperlinks [65].

  • The potential for adding concepts like the Trust Spanning Protocol and Trust Registry Query Protocol as extensions was discussed, noting they could add value but might also add complexity [66]. Extensions are where work on technical bases like levels of assurance and interaction protocols will likely happen [67, 68].

  • There is a naming conflict with Europe regarding the term "Digital Product Passport", as Europe has a legally defined standard under their CIRPASS project and wants UNTP to use a different term [69]. John feels UNTP should stick with the term as their structure is different and Europe doesn't own the phrase [69, 70]

  • Neil shared an analogy from his work on a Digital Travel Profile, which also avoids dictating storage but defines schemas for presentation and exchange, similar to UNTP's ethos of "data at the edge" [71, 72]

  • Makki asked about the potential link between DPP and eIDAS (European wallet identity framework) [73, 74], to which John clarified UNTP DPPs are for products, but acknowledged the idea of linking with identity frameworks [75].

Decisions:

• Keep the bi-weekly meeting schedule as currently set up with calendar entries [13, 48].

• Neil Thomson will serve as the meeting coordinator in John Phillips' absence, running the meeting as required and ensuring continuity [13, 48].

• Decide on a meeting-by-meeting basis whether there is substantive content to discuss and make progress [48].

Actions:

• Neil Thomson: Add notes from the April 16 meeting to the GATF Wiki page [27, 29]. (Status: Completed, confirmed in chat [2]).

• Interested Participants: Fill out the UNCEFACT expert registration form to potentially become active participants in the UN Global Trust Registry Project [25, 47, 76].

• John Phillips: (Implicit) If participants don't receive a response after a few days regarding their UNCEFACT registration, follow up with Drummond and Alex and potentially check with the Council or Secretariat [77].

List of Actions:

• Neil Thomson to add notes from the April 16 meeting to the GATF Wiki page. (Completed).

• Interested participants to fill out the UNCEFACT expert registration form.

• John Phillips to potentially follow up on UNCEFACT registrations if needed.

Chat notes

00:15:35 John Phillips (Sezoo): 2025-04-16 GATF Meeting Notes - Americas - complete but no recording
00:21:34 Neil Thomson (QueryVision): My notes dropped into the GATF Apr 16 mtg on Confluence
00:23:16 John Phillips (Sezoo): https://unece.org/trade/uncefact/HoD
00:24:01 John Phillips (Sezoo): https://uncefact.unece.org/display/uncefactpublic/UNCEFACT+Expert+Registration
00:34:34 John Phillips (Sezoo): UN Transparency Protocol | UN Transparency Protocol
00:35:52 Scott Perry (Digital Governance Institute): Response from UN/CEFACT upon registration: Dear Mr. Scott Perry,
Thank you for your interest in UN/CEFACT.
We are reaching out to the head of your selected delegation - United States of America and will let you know once your request has been processed.
With best regards,
UN/CEFACT Team
00:57:13 Neil Thomson (QueryVision): Sounds like data at the edge - stream the links and their relationship - very thing ACDC messaging.
00:57:22 John Phillips (Sezoo): Reacted to "Sounds like data at ..." with 👍
00:59:37 Jo Spencer (Sezoo): Reacted to "Sounds like data at ..." with 👍