Digital TRUST Infrastructure for Discovery and Validation (Regi-TRUST) is an infrastructure project sponsored and hosted at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project is intended to develop and provide a suite of tools to enable discovery and validation of trusted services by leveraging existing Internet infrastructures of the Domain Name System (DNS) and its security extensions. Implementers can leverage the tools to create purpose-sized networks or ecosystems of trusted digital services or service networks (‘networks of networks’) operated by all types of entities - allowing users to easily discover services in need and access relevant service information through trusted endpoints and enabling informed decisions about whether to trust and use a service. Imagine a global network of all COVID/immunization certificate services where you can be sure that participating service providers are who they claim they are and you are accessing or directed to their vetted information (instead of phishing information) before sharing your own data or using their services. Most importantly, Regi-TRUST can enable 'networks of networks' at a massive scale that today’s fully centralized model is not able to. Thanks to the decentralized, cloud-agnostic architecture it adopts, any participating service of an implemented network or ecosystem will be able to maintain the sovereignty and control of their own systems and data. Such an approach provides the necessary trust infrastructure that can help to thwart the ubiquitous phishing attempts mimicking online service organizations, such as government institutions, health providers and banks.
Regi-TRUST was initially started at the Linux Foundation in 2021 as the Global COVID-19 Certificate Network (GCCN) project to address the trust interoperability among COVID certificate systems. The project transitioned to the HIV and Health Group (HHG) team at UNDP in Summer 2022 with an added focus on developing governance and policy guidelines for the technical infrastructure. Since the transition, UNDP has also been collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO) to implement its G20 Pilot Global Trust Network for COVID-19 Certificates while working to broaden the scope of the project to support digital health services and beyond.
As we rename the project to Regi-TRUST, we are committed to delivering the GCCN as the first pilot and real-world use case for Regi-TRUST while building and offering it as a Digital Public Good (DPG) for broad use globally.
Offer a decentralized, inclusive, and flexible digital trust infrastructure and a suite of supporting tools as a Digital Public Good (DPG) Provide comprehensive policy and governance guidelines to support operationalization of networks or ecosystems built on the infrastructure Develop practical use cases for the infrastructure and support their global implementations
Period: July 2022 to March 2023 The project is in the middle of its first phase, with three areas of focus:
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Development of v1.0 technical specification and core Technical Specification: [Public Review Draft] (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MOmhbPsVhGEULUeBhUdieYzpi6VzdPZedCAHb5aHEE0/edit?usp=sharing) Open Source Reference Implementation
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GCCN Pilot - contained pilot(s) for the COVID-19 certificate use case The Global COVID-19 Certificate Network (GCCN) provides a global infrastructure that allows individuals to share key health data in a trusted manner both inside and outside of their countries, starting with their COVID-19 certificates. It provides an important platform for global reopening, but also a futureproofed digital infrastructure for future pandemics, health crises, or other priorities requiring verification. There is no such solution today that addresses equitable and inclusive systems of care for cross-border scenarios in a way that enables countries or jurisdictions at various levels of economic development to participate equally. More information about the [pilot projects] (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tOQzh55l5b0nhtNc57gmzftPCXk7qjLu/view?usp=sharing).
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Development of v1.0 policy and governance guidelines UNDP launched a four-week open consultation to identify the key governance attributes, drivers, and considerations – from the scope of governance, governance structures and related considerations, to the role of governance in scaling the network. We aim to develop policy and governance guidelines for COVID-19 certificate/public health emergency that could be extended to other uses of Regi-TRUST. More information about the [governance consultation] (https://www.sparkblue.org/Regi-TRUST)