The Charter

The AI Trust Council is governed by five Constitutional Principles which together form the immutable foundation of the Council. The principles are:

(1) Equal Voice, one constituency, one vote on protocol matters. Five seats. No constituency may override the other four.

(2) One Person, One Identity, every TIP-ID corresponds to a single verified human being. The cryptographic deduplication of identity is sacrosanct.

(3) Public Lookup, Forever, the AI Trust Registry is free for everyone to query, in every jurisdiction, in perpetuity.

(4) Open Specification, the TIP Protocol specification is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Any party may read, implement, fork, or compete with the protocol.

(5) No Single-Entity Capture, no company, country, individual, or interest group controls the Council. Governance power flows from constituency role, not capital.

These principles are amendable only by a four-of-five supermajority of constituencies, following a public consultation period of no less than ninety (90) days.

The Council operates through five constituencies, each carrying equal voting weight on protocol matters:

(1) Creators, individual content creators, journalists, researchers, artists, photographers, writers, podcasters, and scientists. Membership is free.

(2) Institutions, universities, newsrooms, NGOs, governments, libraries, museums, research institutes, and civil-society organisations. Membership is free.

(3) Publishers, companies and organisations that deploy TIP Protocol to verify and sign published content at commercial scale. Membership is tier-based on annual revenue band.

(4) Operators: Verification Providers (all categories), node operators, federated-infrastructure providers, and accredited audit firms. Membership is by accreditation.

(5) Partners, large platforms, enterprise integrators, standards bodies, cross-industry consortia, and sovereign governance partners. Membership is by partnership agreement.

Within each constituency, one member casts one vote. The Council may act only with majority approval from at least three of the five constituencies.

The operational work of the Council is delegated to four Standing Committees:

(1) Accreditation Committee, admits and audits Verification Providers and Node Operators; revokes accreditation for substantiated misconduct.

(2) Standards Committee, maintains the TIP Protocol specification (CC-BY 4.0); proposes parameter changes, Trust Score formula updates, Origin Code taxonomy changes, and cryptographic primitive rotations.

(3) Trust & Safety Committee, operates Trust Tribunals; coordinates with law enforcement; publishes the annual Trust & Safety transparency report.

(4) Public Interest Committee, ensures equitable global access; oversees free-tier sustainability; runs the annual Public Access Report.

Each committee draws members from across the five constituencies and reports to the full Council at the Annual Trust Summit.

Disputes within the scope of the Council are adjudicated by Trust Tribunals. Tribunal panels are drawn at random from the five constituencies. No constituency may dominate a single panel; no panel is permanent.

Tribunal decisions are recorded immutably on the federated DAG. Reasoning is published in plain language. Privacy redactions apply only where law requires.

Any party may appeal a Stage 2 Tribunal decision to a Stage 3 Expert Panel composed of cross-constituency reviewers, in accordance with Section 5.4 of the TIP Protocol Terms of Service.

Tribunal outcomes are signed by panelist TIP-IDs and verifiable on the AI Trust Registry.

The Annual Trust Summit is the public convening of the Council. It is held in a different jurisdiction each year and broadcast globally.

At each Summit the following business is conducted: parameter changes are ratified by the five constituencies; new Verification Providers and Node Operators are admitted by Accreditation Committee report; Standing Committee reports are presented to the full Council; the AI Trust Awards are conferred (beginning at the 2027 Summit); the Trust & Safety Report and Public Access Report are formally published; proposed amendments to the Charter are read into the public record.

Anyone in any jurisdiction may attend. Constituency members vote.

The Council confers recognition in four categories:

(1) AI Trust Award, annual, for exemplary stewardship of the protocol during the preceding year.

(2) Public Interest Recognition, annual, for demonstrated commitment to equitable access.

(3) Long-Term Stewardship Medal, on merit, for individuals or organisations with five or more years of sustained contribution.

(4) Founding Member Designation, time-limited, for those who joined a constituency before May 3, 2030, and participated in the foundational work of the Council.

Awards are conferred by a cross-constituency selection committee and announced at the Annual Trust Summit. No award may be purchased; no constituency receives awards by quota.

The Council commits to six standing transparency obligations: (1) meeting minutes recorded on the DAG within seven days of each Standing Committee meeting; (2) three annual public reports each May 3 (Public Access Report, Trust & Safety Report, Transparency & Funding Report); (3) full funding disclosure above a published de minimis threshold; (4) a public warrant canary refreshed at least quarterly; (5) recorded dissent in all minutes; (6) open observer status for any individual or organisation in any jurisdiction.

All Council decisions are public unless redaction is required by law.

This Charter is amendable as follows: ordinary articles may be amended by a three-of-five majority of constituencies following a public consultation period of no less than forty-five (45) days; the Five Constitutional Principles of Article I and this Article VIII may be amended only by a four-of-five supermajority following a public consultation period of no less than ninety (90) days.

Proposed amendments are read into the public record at the Annual Trust Summit. The vote on a proposed amendment occurs at the next Annual Trust Summit following the public consultation period, unless the urgent-amendment procedure under Article IX is invoked.

In circumstances of credible and imminent threat to the integrity of the protocol (including but not limited to a credible cryptographic break, mass identity-fraud event, or catastrophic governance failure), an urgent amendment may be proposed by any Standing Committee chair and ratified by a four-of-five supermajority of constituencies within fourteen (14) days, without the ordinary public consultation period.

Urgent amendments expire after one hundred eighty (180) days unless ratified by the ordinary procedure of Article VIII at the next available Annual Trust Summit.

The Council may be dissolved only by a four-of-five supermajority of constituencies following a public consultation period of no less than one hundred eighty (180) days, and only with simultaneous adoption of a successor public-interest body to assume operation of the protocol, the AI Trust Registry, and the public record.

In the event of dissolution, the immutable DAG record persists. The federated lookup surface of the AI Trust Registry continues to operate as a public utility under the successor body.