Skip to content

About

The Visible Digital Seal International Council

VDSIC is an independent global authority — established in October 2016 — responsible for the governance, standardization, security and trustworthiness of the Visible Digital Seal environment.

Mission

An international system for the VDS

VDSIC’s mandate is to develop and promote an international system for the Visible Digital Seal, ensuring the global integrity, authenticity, security and interoperability of the VDS. It administers the trust environment that lets a seal issued in one country be verified, with confidence, anywhere in the world.

The council does this by accrediting and overseeing the actors in the ecosystem, publishing the technical specification and conformance requirements, and operating the top-level trust anchor that the whole hierarchy chains back to.

Trust hierarchy

Who governs what

Four tiers of accountability, each chaining to the one above it.

1

VDSIC Governance Board

Sets global policy and standards, accredits Scheme Operators, and maintains the Root List of Trusted Lists.

2

Scheme Operators (TSO)

Operate a trusted scheme, maintain the Scheme LoTL and manifest ranges, and supervise the TSPs and issuers within it.

3

Trust Service Providers (TSP)

Deliver the Certificate Authorities that issue and manage signing certificates for VDS Service Providers.

4

VDS Service Providers

Create and digitally sign VDS instances for a use case, following the manifest and policies set by the Scheme Operator.

Read the full breakdown in the Trust Actors.

VDSIC

The English / international identity of the council.

AIGCEV

AIGCEV — the French-language identity: Association Internationale pour la Gouvernance du Cachet Électronique Visible.

Become a member

Scheme Operators, Certificate Authorities and issuers join the VDSIC trust environment to interoperate under one accredited standard. Reach out to start the accreditation process.

Contact VDSIC