Today we are excited to announce the publication of our first round of Trustmark Definitions (TDs) here on the trustmark website. These TDs are the result of many months’ work by our team, including analysis of NIEF requirements, reconciliation of NIEF requirements with other trust frameworks (mostly FICAM), and development of a standard normative structure for TDs.

As we discuss on our technical framework page, a TD is much like a normative specification, but with several important differences. First, a TD includes not only a list of conformance criteria that the Trustmark Recipient (TR) must meet, but also a list of assessment steps that an independent 3rd-party Trustmark Provider (TP) must follow to determine whether the TR conforms to the TD as required. Second, a TD is required to be formatted in a standard structure that permits automated processing by software tools.

Today we are publishing 60 TDs, representing the majority of the NIEF trust framework requirements that we will leverage when we begin issuing actual trustmarks as part of our operational pilot later this year. More TDs are likely to come in the next few months, as we refine both the TDs’ content and the normative specification for TDs, which defines a standard structure to which TDs must conform. Each TD is available in two formats: human-readable HTML and machine-readable XML. All TDs are currently marked as “Version 0.1”, to indicate that they are still somewhat in flux and subject to change.

You can find the TDs here. As always, feedback is welcome and encouraged. Please contact us at TrustmarkFeedback@gtri.gatech.edu if you have any questions or comments.