6. Gaia-X Trust Framework components

This section focuses on the mandatory software components that are being operated only by the Gaia-X Digital Clearing Houses (GXDCHs) to enable the issuing of Gaia-X Credentials.

6.1 Gaia-X Compliance

The service takes as input the Verifiable Presentations provided by the participants, checks them against the SHACL Shapes available in the Registry and performs other consistency checks based on the Gaia-X rules.

The service returns a Verifiable Credential, the “Gaia-X Credential” with a Gaia-X signature, as a proof that the input provided has passed all the verifications.

6.2 Gaia-X Registry

The Gaia-X Registry (see https://registry.gaia-x.eu) is a public distributed, non-repudiable, immutable, permissionless database with a decentralised infrastructure and the capacity to automate code execution.

The Ecosystems may want to have their own instance of a local Registry or equivalent. Technically, this component can be part of the ecosystem’s local Catalogues.

The Gaia-X Registry is the backbone of the ecosystem governance, which stores information, similarly to the Official Journal of the European Union, such as:

• the list of the Trust Anchors – keyring.
• the result of the Trust Anchors validation processes.
• the potential revocation of Trust Anchors’s identity.
• the vote and results of the Gaia-X Association roll call vote, similar to the rules of the plenary of the European Parliament.
• the shapes and schemas for the Gaia-X VCs.
• the URLs of Gaia-X Catalogue’s credentials.
• the text of the Terms and Conditions for Gaia-X Conformity.
• …

It also facilitates the provision of:

1. A decentralized network with smart contract functionality.
2. Voting mechanisms that ensure integrity, non-repudiation, and confidentiality.
3. Access to a Gaia-X Compliance Service instance.
4. A fully operational, decentralized and easily searchable catalogue¹.
5. A list of Participants’ identities and credentials’ URIs which violate Gaia-X membership rules. This list must be used by all Gaia-X Trusted Catalogue providers to filter out any inappropriate content.
6. Tokens may cover the operating cost of the Gaia-X Ecosystem. This specific point can be abstracted by 3rd party brokers wrapping token usage with fiat currency, providing opportunities for new services to be created by the Participants. Emitting tokens for the Gaia-X Association’s members is also considered.

The Gaia-X Registry is used by the Gaia-X Compliance Engine to perform the checks needed to assess Gaia-X Conformity and can be used by 3rd parties to get correct information (about the shapes, T&C, etc). The Gaia-X Registry will be used as the seeding list for the network of Catalogues.

Each entry in the Gaia-X Registry is considered a transaction. A transaction contains DIDs of all actors involved in the transaction and metadata about the transaction in a machine-readable format. The basic rule for a transaction to be valid is that all DIDs have one of the Trust Anchors as root Certificate Authorities. Please also note that the Registry stores all revoked Trust Anchors.

This model enables the Participants to operate in the Gaia-X Ecosystem, to autonomously register information, and to access the information which is verifiable by other Participants.

6.3 Gaia-X Notary - LRN (Legal Registration Number)

• Takes as input a LegalRegistrationNumber VC from the user
• Verifies that the VC contains at least one identification number as requested by the Gaia-X rules, and checks that the number is valid
• Returns a Gaia-X VC with the proof that the number has been verified

Note: see the Annex chapter for the full list of GXDCH components.